


The Light Beyond The Glass

by ophan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelic Trueforms, Canon Divergence - Season 7, Canon-Typical Violence, Hallucination Lucifer (Supernatural) | Hallucifer, Leviathans, Lovecraftian Monster(s), M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery from trauma, Redemption, Season 5 Lucifer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 92,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29402211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophan/pseuds/ophan
Summary: There’s a new Leviathan-eating monster on the loose, and Sam and Dean need to stop it before it starts eating humans. Trouble is, it can only be killed by an archangel. Luckily, Sam’s found a summoning spell to take care of that.Now Sam must find a way to work with Lucifer to save the world from this latest horror while overcoming his memories of the Cage and dealing with an archangel that insists what he remembers is not the truth of what happened.A Season 7 canon divergent fic where the Lucifer of Sam's visions doesn't seem to match up to the Lucifer he's summoned. [Or, s5 Lucifer is a separate entity to Hallucifer.]
Relationships: Lucifer/Sam Winchester
Comments: 59
Kudos: 61





	1. Part 1 - The Summoning 1. The Omens are all bad

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this back in 2016, so it uses s4-5 Lucifer's characterisation and treats him as a separate entity to season 7+ Lucifer (Hallucifer) in the grand tradition of "I like this version of canon better." 
> 
> There are no rape scenes in this fic. There is canon-typical violence. There is bad language. Hallucifer, when he turns up, has his s7 characterisation. The Lucifer that Sam summons is the S5 version, and the relationship between Sam and him is ultimately what the fic is about. It deviates from canon post episode 8 of s7. Elements of the world's backplot from later seasons will turn up, but be fully explained in text.
> 
> The fic is already completed and fully written, I'm just taking my time editing the chapters. I update every Weds and Sat night.
> 
> Let me know if you think anything else needs tagging. :]

  
  


At the entrance to the darkened tunnel the dog stops, and will go no further.

The man beside it leans down and strokes his fingers through the black fur between the animal’s ears, but his eyes remain on the yawning mouth of the tunnel. The shadows there are as deep and dark as the weight of a mountain, and from somewhere far below a breath of cold air whispers out into the night and tousles the curls of his greying hair.

“Easy there, King,” he mutters.

The dog shivers, a full-body tremble that courses through its stoutly muscled frame, and turns its head uncertainly, pressing against the man’s legs. There is a noise from the darkened opening, a high wail of sound that hovers just at the edge of perception, tinny and fragile. Man and dog both tilt their heads to listen.

The night is still and dark, the stars above looking down in cold disdain as the man takes a step towards the tunnel mouth. He pauses a long moment at the entrance, then he passes through into the shadows, and they close like ink around his shoulders. He goes down into the dark, into the singing emptiness, and he takes no light with him.

Crouched down low and shivering, the dog slowly follows.

**Ch.1**

Sam Winchester is dreaming. He knows it because he can’t remember how he came to be in this place. There is light, bright and achingly beautiful, like sunlight through stained glass, but as cold as a northern midwinter morning. He turns his hand over, reaching through the illumination as though he could somehow grasp it, and watches as it plays over his skin in pale blue and green, and other colours that he can feel but not name. The cold, somehow, as bitter as he understands it to be, does not bother him. He feels at peace, as he has not in so many years.

It takes him a moment to notice that something is wrong. He hears it first when the low, calming hum that permeates this place is shattered by the tolling of some great bell, far and far away. Confused he looks up into the hazy play of light and listens. Something stirs, as though disturbed from where it coils around him, and he feels a touch across his skin that makes him think of the very tips of feathers. The bell tolls again, a dark, oppressive clanging that makes him wince, twisting inside him horribly.

The light changes, becomes darker, redder, and he draws back in alarm. Colours that were not there before seep into his vision - crimson and black, soot and ash. He steps back and the world catches fire. Flames shoot upwards, crawling up his legs, his chest, and licking across his face. He screams, for the pain is sudden and terrible, and his ears are filled up with the evil snap and clank of rushing chains.

He is burning, and something is screaming, and the light grows blinding. His vision is filled with fire, and two blue eyes that blaze with wrath-

Sam comes awake suddenly, panting and bolt upright. Sweat beads on his skin, and his fingers clench in the bedsheets as he stares around wildly.

“Sam..?”

“Dean,” he gasps, meeting his brother’s eyes across the room. Dean looks startled, wary, and has half-risen from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed opposite. There’s a sock in one of his hands, and Sam’s gaze goes from that to where he’s already gotten the other one on his foot. He looks vaguely ridiculous bent over as he is, half-dressed and not sure if he should be grabbing for his gun or his little brother.

“You okay? Bad dream?”

Sam pulls a hand through his sweaty hair and nods quickly, fighting to bring his breathing back under control. Gradually the flames fade back into nightmare, and his world is once more filled with outdated decor and the stale motel room scent of too many people over too many years. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just dreaming, I’m fine. You done with the shower?”

Dean is slow to respond, his eyes still narrowed in concern. “Sure, yeah. Go ahead.”

No matter how quickly his brother ducks his head to finish pulling on his socks, Sam can still feel him watching out of the corner of his eye until the bathroom door closes behind him.

  
  


*

“Oregon.”

Dean’s finger taps at the folded map on the diner table as he takes another bite of pancake. Sam leans in, craning his head round to see the town name before tapping it into Google Maps. The waitress passes by with more coffee, smiling at him in greeting. She’s becoming used to Sam’s presence in the corner of her territory. Abby’s Welcome Break may have only tolerable food, but the Wi-Fi is both free and reliable, granting it an edge over their motel’s atrocious offering.

“It’s ten hours drive from here,” Sam replies thoughtfully. “We’ll need more cash for gas if we’re going to make it today, I’m almost out.”

Dean makes a face and digs in his pocket. The crumpled bills he puts on the counter fold out into three twenties and some change. Sam shrugs in acknowledgement, and starts looking for the cheapest motels in their target area. The pickings are thin and he mentally resigns himself to another night sleeping in the Impala.

“So what did Jamie say?”

Dean wipes syrup from his plate with one finger before he answers. “Said she saw a guy up there acting off, signs match Leviathan. Probably a lone one.”

Sam hums in thought as he searches the local news feeds, picking out articles which note disappearances and deaths. “A spate of animal attacks, they’re putting it down to a black bear. It’s drawing some attention from the mainstream press though, so we’ll have to get there fast before this guy moves on. Do we have an ID yet?”

“Not yet. Jamie’ll update us later.”

“Then let’s hit the road.”

They leave money on the counter and head out into a day just starting to turn bright, packing their bags and turning the wheels of the Impala towards the north.

*

  
  


By midmorning the sky has faded back to an impenetrable ceiling of pale grey cloud, the promised sun shining only weakly through the thinner sections of cloud cover. Sam stares at the washed-out yellow disk until common sense turns his eyes away, and then blinks to make the dark spots dance across his vision. A ripple of low hills crumple the horizon and the grasses that whip by on either side look thin and anaemic in the grey day. The air is humid and muggy, and even with the window wound down for the breeze his head throbs with a dull ache.

Dean quit singing some time back when his gentle goading failed to elicit even the slightest response from his younger brother, and now he drives with one forearm hanging just out the window, maintaining contact with the steering wheel with just the tips of his fingers. Normally, this far into a long trip Sam would be reading or making notes, calling ahead to make enquiries and lay the groundwork for whatever cover will work best. Today though he simply lets his head fall back, allowing the breeze to push at his face and flick strands of his hair across his cheeks.

“What is it? You not sleep good last night or something?”

Sam has not “slept good” for some weeks now, ever since Castiel let the darkness back into the world and Lucifer came back to press his bloody palm against Sam’s cheek. Even against the soil and scrub scent of the desert he can still smell the viscera beneath the Devil’s fingernails, dried into the folds of his skin. It makes him want to retch, and he closes his eyes against the feeling, swallowing it down hard.

“Sam.”

“I heard you.”

His voice sounds normal to his own ears, which is a blessing. Dean though, Dean is watching him sideways, and Sam can feel the weight of his suspicion beneath the customary layer of abrasive tough love his brother favours. Sam can lie to his brother because Dean wants so badly for things to be okay, enough that even when Sam can hear the falseness in his own voice he knows Dean will let himself believe it’s nothing. There’ll be a finite period of this of course, before the inevitable throw down where Dean has had enough of pretending and they fight again, throwing verbal punches until it’s all out in the open, bleeding and raw.

But Sam has promised - no more lies, no more making out like everything’s okay when the dreams are clawing at the inside of his head and filling it with blackness and blood. The ground he’s on has been shaky for some time now, and the one person to steady him, no matter the twisted past between them, has been Dean.  _ He’s my brother, _ Sam tells himself, and stamps on the reply that says,  _ and that’s the problem. _

“I’m tired,” he says, against the wind that’s blustering against his face. “Just bad dreams. I’ve got a headache and I can’t shift it.”

Dean takes a moment to blink away his surprise before he replies. Sam’s candour is still new to him, a reminder of an older time when they were both still young and it was simpler to talk about what their lives were. After Ruby and Satan and the long months of struggle, he’s still not sure how to take it. “There’s some aspirin in the back if you want them.”

Sam shrugs one shoulder and shakes his head. “Maybe if it gets bad. It’s just really annoying at the moment.”

It’s possible that Dean would have said more, but a whine of tinny guitar music interrupts as his phone goes off. It’s Jamie, with news of where they can find their Leviathan target. Dean’s sharp tone makes Sam frown at him in query, but it’s not until he’s folded his phone away and thrown it onto the dash that he speaks.

“Fantastic.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “He’s quit town already?”

“You could say that.  _ Permanently.  _ Town, and this plane of existence.”

The news banishes all thoughts of headache from Sam’s mind and he straightens in his seat. There are no hunters this side of the state that they know of except for them and Jamie. “What the hell? Who got to him? And  _ how _ ?”

“Maybe not who,” Dean says darkly. “What.”

Glaring at the road still stretching far into the distance, he puts his foot down and the Impala accelerates towards the state line.

*

Jamie has dark hair cut short and a mouth that pulls down at the corners in a permanent scowl. She holds a shotgun under her arm and takes a drag on her cigarette as she regards the corpse at their feet.

“You say he was a game hunter?” Sam asks, glancing up at her. He’s kneeling about a metre and a half from the body, loathe to get too close. Dean lurks in the doorway to the cabin, alternating between looking in at them and keeping an eye out on the trail.

Jamie nods, turns her head to the side to breathe out a plume of smoke, and gestures round the room with the hand that holds her cigarette. “Fisherman mostly. Some game. Kept to himself after his Betty passed on. That’s how we knew he was off. Started coming down into town. Never did that before.”

Sam swallows and looks back at the remains of the dead Leviathan. If this guy had been a regular hunter, a fisherman, then it’s entirely possible that the Leviathan that took him came from the waters he fished. It’s a long way from Castiel’s ground zero out here, but who’s to say what the Leviathans can and can’t do. How far they can have gotten now they’re in the water supply.

“Did he ever say anything? Do anything? Act like there was something after him maybe?”

She shakes her head slowly, her eyes on the dead monster. Sam can’t read what she’s thinking, and if she mourns this man’s loss then she hides it well behind a dispassionate mask. Her eyes are dark and calm, and he thinks absently that they are the eyes of a soldier. 

“You seen anything like this before?” she asks suddenly.

Sam shakes his head. “No,” he replies softly.

Reaching out with a pen he’s pulled from his pocket, he very gently touches just the tip of it to the man’s shoulder. The corpse, as white as chalk, crumbles immediately, collapsing in on itself between the layers of its camo pants and checked shirt, raising up a cloud of pale dust that sends them all springing away, batting at the air and choking in disgust.

“Whatever the hell it is,” Dean snaps, “It’s effective. I don’t think the bastard’s coming back from that.”

Sam, hurriedly spitting out powdered Leviathan, can only agree.

  
  


*

  
  


He’s not sure what wakes him. It takes him a moment to get his bearings before he can make sense of the shape of the Impala’s interior and remember where they are. His eyes adjust to the layering of shadow on shadow outside, tree trunks and the heavy sway of leaves overhead. Dean is not beside him, and the car is cold. Pushing himself upright he looks out the windscreen into the clearing he knows they parked up in. A flicker of light across the way tells him where his brother is.

For a moment Sam just watches, making certain that it’s Dean. From here he can just see his brother’s face. He’s lit a candle, pushing the thick yellow width of it down into the soil and seating himself on a fallen log. He has something in his hand, but Sam can’t see what it is. A glance at his watch tells him that it’s 2 am.

They left the town and Jamie and the chalky remains of the Leviathan behind them a few hours back. Dinner had been picked up from a local store, wrapped sandwiches and beer, and Jamie had melted back into town not long after they’d returned from the hunter’s cabin. She left them with a promise that she’d take care of the remains, and then she vanished, leaving behind nothing else but the scent of her ever-present cigarette. 

The creak of the Impala’s door is loud in the clearing, and he sees Dean glance up. It’s chilly in the forest, and he can smell the damp earth beneath his feet. His footsteps make the leaf litter crackle under his weight as he crosses slowly to join his brother. Dean has a long, crooked stick in his hand and he gives Sam a look that tells him the intrusion is unwelcome but tolerated, like he’s managed to catch him doing something vaguely embarrassing.

Sam seats himself on the log beside Dean and wonders what they’re doing out here. The ground in front of the log has been scuffed clear of needles and debris to reveal bare earth, and in the flickering candlelight he catches sight of markings scraped into the dirt. Most of them have been struck through with the tip of Dean’s stick, but he can still see the suggestion of Enochian sigils. Angel and messenger and a single name, over and over.

“Did he answer?” Sam asks .

“Do you see him?”

The forest is not silent. It sighs and whispers to itself, filled with the voices of insects and the crackle of underbrush where its unseen inhabitants scuttle about their nighttime business. There are shadows and trees, but no angel standing in a dirty trench coat, tie askew and eyes like grief. Sam looks down at the badly etched symbols and sees that the only one drawn with certainty is the angel’s name.

“We’ll find him.”

“Sure we will.”

Dean’s tone is unconvinced. He’s angry again - at the world, at the angel, at himself for trusting when he should have kept his own counsel. Sam doesn’t know what to say to him. How to undo the years and years of betrayal and disappointment, of fuck ups and bad luck, all twisted in and around, over and under. He doesn’t know how to look past it himself sometimes. Certainly not enough to be lecturing his older brother.

“We’ll see what Bobby says,” he offers.

Dean tosses the stick aside and rises to his feet, brushing his jeans off. “Bring the candle back when you’re done. And we need to pick up more on the way back.”

Sam nods and watches him stride away back to the Impala. He looks tired and frustrated, but his shoulders are straight with his customary bravado.

“So unhealthy.”

The low voice sends a jolt of startlement through Sam and he stiffens, only just managing not to jump to his feet. It came from behind him, close enough that he could turn his head and feel breath on his skin.

“You boys really need to talk it out mo-”

The pain is sharp and sudden, turning his stomach with its sickening bite, enough to almost make him retch. Lucifer’s voice cuts out though, halfway through his sentence, and Sam presses his fingers in tight to his palm, enduring the pain for the sake of his sanity. Two seconds, three, and then he releases his grip, still feeling the shocking stab of wounded nerves protesting his treatment. His hand throbs, enough to make him want to move, to get up, to growl or hiss or do something to shake off the pain.

But he doesn’t. Instead he forces himself to listen to the night-time sounds of the forest until he’s absolutely certain he’s alone, and then with calm, deliberate movements he snuffs out the candle, slips it into his pocket, and returns to the Impala without once looking back.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s another twelve hour drive back to Rufus’ cabin where Bobby is waiting for them. Sam dials him up en route, explains what they saw and listens to him curse over the phone. “We’ll see you soon,” he tells him before he hangs up.

“Anything?” Dean asks, and Sam shakes his head.

“Nothing in dad’s journal, and Bobby doesn’t have a clue. He says he’ll hit the books.”

“What’s left of them,” Dean grouses.

Sam looks over at him in surprise. It’s unlike Dean to complain about the opportunity not to have to do research. Research is, mostly, Sam’s job. Dean will do it when necessary of course, and he’s no slouch at it, but his interest lies more towards news reports and local area knowledge, rather than dusty old books. For him to mourn the loss of something that Sam had more or less considered his resource is unusual.

“Rufus kept a bunch of stuff at his place, and Bobby has other sources. He’ll find something.”

It turns out that Rufus’ collection doesn’t have anything to offer. Bobby doesn’t quite meet them at the door as they arrive many hours later, worn out from the long drive, but he comes straight through from the kitchen with a grim look on his face.

“You boys speak to anyone else getting here?”

They look at him blankly, throwing their bags down and pausing halfway through shrugging off their coats.

At their nonplussed head shakes, Bobby’s face creases into a scowl of displeasure. “Jamie called back. Apparently there’s been other things in that town that’ve only just come to light now the dust’s settling. So to speak.”

“Out with it, Bobby,” Dean says impatiently, when the older man pauses to shake his head in disgust.

“Here.” The old hunter picks a laptop up off the small coffee table and turns it round so they can read it.

They read in silence for a moment, scanning their eyes down the Notepad list of items that Bobby’s typed up.

“So what,” Sam says after a second. “We rest up, head back out there tomorrow morning?”

Dean runs his palms over his face, sighing before he answers. “Bobby, tell me you found something,  _ anything,  _ to explain what the hell that was back there?”

Bobby shakes his head and shrugs. “I’ve done the best I can with what I’ve got, but a lot of my collection went up in smoke with the yard. I’ve still got some caches up and down the country, but...it’s getting to them.”

Sam looks up. “Is there anywhere we can go to get things for you?”

“Honestly, boys, I know what’s in my stores and I don’t think there’s anything in there that’ll help.”

They look at each other in defeat and Dean sinks down on the couch, putting his elbows on his knees before looking up at Sam. “Sammy?”

Sam reaches for the laptop and scrolls up and down the list of points Bobby made. “So we have a powdered Leviathan, three separate instances of people wandering out in the middle of the night hallucinating and delirious, requiring sedation before they could be restrained; an orchard of rotten fruit still on the tree, and the scent of flowers where there were none. I’m not sure about that last?”

Bobby shrugs again. “Apparently if you walked down Main Street you could smell something like flowers all day, but no-one can say which ones.”

“Wonderful,” Dean says flatly. “It was always too much to ask that something offing Leviathans would leave everyone else alone while it did it.”

Sam shakes his head. The thought that whatever killed the Leviathan could have been useful to them had crossed his mind too, but as ever Winchester bad luck had won out. “Thanks, Bobby,” he says, handing the laptop back. “We’ll head back out there tomorrow and take another look, see what we can find.”

Bobby humphs an agreement and glances at Dean, frowning just slightly at his lowered head. “You boys get some rest. It’s a long drive back.”

Sam flicks an eyebrow at that, and then picks up his bag and heads to bed.

  
  


*

  
  


“Not salt?”

“No, powder. Like...talc.”

“Talc. Not all that Biblical.”

Sam laughs, shakes his head. “No. I’m sick of Biblical honestly.”

Lucifer chuckles softly, shrugs. “Story of my life, Sam.”

Metallica’s leonine roar is suddenly cut off, and abruptly Sam is awake. He blinks out the windscreen at a rain-greyed world, old-fashioned streets draped in rural living, and sidewalks mostly empty.

“Rise and shine, Sammy. We’re here.”

Dean sits back and Sam wipes a hand across his eyes. “How long was I out?”

“Four hours. Guess you needed the sleep.”

Sam grunts a response and straightens up. “Doctor, then fruit farm?”

Dean nods, and points a finger up at the sign on the wall next to them. The clinic it indicates is tiny, as befits the size of the town, and will be either excited to think they’re part of an FBI investigation, or straight on the phone to the local police department. In the worst case, possibly both.

It doesn’t take them long talking to the receptionist to find out that the doctor is already out on his rounds and that he won’t be back until mid-afternoon. The lady remains tight-lipped about the nature of the incidents they’re here to investigate, and they leave with a promise to return in the afternoon. Instead, they head back outside to find Jamie leaning against the side of the wall. She greets them with a nod, and slides into the back of the car when Dean offers her a ride. When Sam asks if she’s okay with being seen with a pair of Federal Agents she just shrugs and they leave it at that.

On the way up to Teller’s Farm she relates a little more about what she’s managed to uncover from the locals. “Three of them. Two guys, one old girl. Walking down the street in the middle of the night, like they’d just got up out of bed and gone straight out without stopping. Shouting about lights in the windows and angels in the sky.”

“Angels?”   
  
“Don’t think it was angels.” She shakes her head.

“Then what?”

“White dog.” At the boys’ blank stares she elaborates a little. “White dog, walking down the street with them. No white dogs in town like that, I know that.”

“And the flowers?”

For a moment Jamie looks thoughtful. “Didn’t smell like flowers to me.” She pauses, watches the people gathered around the front of the little food store as they drive past. “Smelled like rot.”

  
  


*

  
  


Erika Teller runs Teller’s Farm, ten miles out of town and up into the mountain a little way. Her land stretches over a small area of the forest, her animals grazing in meadows further down the slope, free of the trees. It’s a small business, not even capable of supporting a third of the nearby small town with its output, but she simply smiles and shrugs at them from beneath her wide-brimmed sunhat, blowing the twists of faded ginger hair from her lips. Her skin is fair and freckled, and Sam would put her age at somewhere in the early fifties.

“Jamie says you had a problem in your orchard last night?” he asks.

She slides a glance sideways to where Jamie is leaning against the Impala, smoking again. “Uh huh,” she says. “You want to see, Agent?”

She says it as though she knows this is all a game, that they’re all playing roles here, but she’ll go along with it anyway. Dean flicks a knowing glance sideways at him as she gives Sam a crooked smile, but he ignores it, and follows the farmer through the open gate and down the path that leads round the back of her property.

They can smell the orchard long before they get to it. Sweet and sickly, then sour beneath once the lungs are already full. The scent of rot and decay. Sam and Dean make their way slowly into the small orchard, looking up and around at the apples and pears, rotten in place where they hang from the branches. It would have been pleasant in here before this happened. Six rows of small fruit trees, surrounded by an aging white picket fence, closed off from the open back yard of the main farm house. Sam looks up through the branches of the trees and picks his way carefully closer, placing his feet between the patches of rotten black where the fruit has drooled to the ground. Dean is asking questions of Erika about the timing, but Sam’s eye has been caught by a flicker of movement.

Stepping further under the branches, he looks around and between the tree trunks, trying to make out what he saw. Up close the smell is bad, and he wrinkles his nose in distaste. Something moves at the corner of his eye, and there’s a soft tinkle of sound. He flinches away from the glitter and sparkle of it, and finds a wind chime made up of shells and tiny discs of mirror swaying in the breeze next to his head. Pushing it aside he peers out between the trees and sees a figure some distance away.

He almost,  _ almost _ calls out, before he catches himself. His lips thin into a flat line, and he glares, furious that he’s let himself be taken by surprise. Further down the row, Lucifer reaches up to pluck a black apple from a branch. He turns, raises it to his lips and bites deep into the rotten flesh. His eyes, where they lock onto Sam’s, are strikingly blue.

“You find anything?” Dean’s voice breaks the moment, and Sam turns away to find him hovering at the edge of the radius of fallen black fruit.

“No,” he replies shortly.

“All right, our farmer didn’t see anything either. Just came out in the morning and found it all like this. Some kind of fast-acting fungus she says.” He shrugs. “She’d know, I guess.”

Sam looks around at the rows and rows of rotten fruit still hanging from the branches of living trees, and shakes his head.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe.”

  
  


*

  
  


The town is small enough that hanging around the local bar trying to pick up intel simply won’t work, not since they’ve already announced themselves as FBI earlier in the day. It’s 8pm now and the entire town knows. Regardless, they go to the bar that evening; they have to eat, after all. They seat themselves at a corner table where they can watch the door and the main room, and wait for their meals to arrive.

Sam notices Dean stiffen, his face going taut. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Hello, boys!”

The figure that slides in next to them at the table makes Sam lean back to put some space between them. Dean’s face is a sheet of ice, furious and cold.

“Fancy meeting you here!”

“Crowley.”

The demon smiles at them both, then crooks a finger at the guy wiping down tables. He sweeps over with a pad to take the demon’s order and the brothers both glare as Crowley orders whiskey and nothing else. As soon as the server is gone, Dean puts his elbows on the table and leans forward. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hisses.

“Came to find you boys. Knew you’d show up sooner or later, this kind of thing is right up your alley.”

“What do you want from us, Crowley?” Sam interjects.

The demon leans back in his seat and looks between them both. His expression fades away from its usual mocking cast, and for a second he looks almost tired. It’s but a momentary hint, gone as fast as it crosses his face, and they’ve both known him long enough not to trust anything he shows them. Everything can be a ploy with Crowley.

“Where is he?” the demon asks.

“Who?”

“You know who. Don’t play coy with me, squirrel. Where have you got him holed up?”

Sam knows already who they must be talking about, but he forces an answer from the demon anyway. “Got who holed up, Crowley?”

The demon leans forward, his features creasing into a snarl, and then hurriedly sits back as the server approaches with his drink. “Cheers, love,” he says with a smile that earns him a frown from the young man.

When they’re alone again, he leans back in towards them to hiss, “Your feathered friend,  _ Castiel _ . Where’s the angel?”

“And why would we tell you that?” Dean asks flatly.

“Oh, you two chuckleheads clearly have no idea what’s going on here, what a surprise! Look, you tell me where that angel is and I’ll throw you a bone about what’s going on in this town.”

Dean leans back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the demon in a flat, unfriendly stare. “We don’t need your help, Crowley.”

“Yes,” the demon replies curtly, “You do.”

“And what makes you think that precisely?” Sam asks, with a raised eyebrow and a disbelieving glance at Dean.

“Oh, my darlings,” Crowley chuckles, and takes sip of his whiskey. “We’re all going to need help on this one.”

They’re forced to wait until the server that brings their food leaves again before they can get anything further out of the demon. Crowley sits and watches them eat as Dean starts on his food, deliberately ignoring his presence. Sam, following his brother’s lead, does the same. Eventually, Crowley seems to come to some conclusion, for he sighs and sets his tumbler down on the table, turning it slowly between his fingers.

“What does the phrase “Outside context problem” mean to you two?” he asks finally.

Dean doesn’t look up. “Absolutely nothing,” he replies.

Sam pauses though, frowning a little. “It’s from a sci-fi book. I didn’t think science fiction would be your thing, Crowley.”

Crowley shrugs in acknowledgement of that. “My tastes are many and varied. Now why don’t you explain the term for your slightly dimwitted brother?”

Sam eyes the demon for a moment before he says, for Dean’s benefit, “It’s the idea of something, a problem of some kind, that’s so outside the experience of the people who encounter it, that they have absolutely no way of dealing with it. Because of that, generally they don’t survive the encounter.”

“Right,” Dean says with disinterest. He’s paused a moment to listen to Sam, but now he returns to eating his dinner.

Sam watches him stabbing fries and shovelling them into his mouth. Dean’s reluctance to co-operate with Crowley is hardly surprising, but Sam knows the demon must have gone quite out of his way to find them up here. Or, if he’s not here for them then he’s here for the thing that killed the Leviathan, and once more that puts their interests nicely in line. “All right, I’ll bite,” he says. “What’s that got to do with all this?”

“Good. At least one of you has some sense.” Crowley leans in again. “That thing that killed the Leviathan and sent all those locals down looney street, that’s what I’m talking about. That is not your run of the mill monster. That is not even a demon.”

Dean’s chewing has slowed slightly, and a sideways glance at him tells Sam he’s listening too. “Go on.”

“Eve. Remember her? Mistress of darkness and mummy dear to all the things that hide under your bed at night? This is to do with her. Sort of. When the dragons freed their darling old mum, Eve wasn’t the only thing to come crawling out of Purgatory. Something came with her. Something that’s not of this world, or the next -  _ either  _ of them. It’s not from Purgatory either, not originally.” The demon pauses to point a finger at them both. “This thing is something from beyond, from  _ before.” _

“How do you know all this, Crowley?” Dean asks. He’s paused in his eating, and is now looking across the table at the demon, fork hanging in the air.

“I’m the king of Hell, darling. It’s my job to know these things.”

Dean gives an unimpressed snort, but Sam isn’t so willing to dismiss this out of hand. Crowley will never be a trustworthy ally, but the one thing he can be trusted to do is look out for his own skin. If Crowley is taking an interest in this situation then maybe they should be paying attention to what he has to say.

“So I’m guessing you have a Leviathan problem, same as we do,” Sam says. He looks the demon straight in the eye as he says it. “And that’s why you came out here to check this thing out, see what’s got the juice to kill a Leviathan so that it can’t come back.”

“At least one of you has some working grey matter,” Crowley says softly, with a smirk at Sam. “Let me tell you a thing or two about Purgatory, boys. It’s not for the faint-hearted, and it’s not just full of monsters. There’s things in that wasteland that got trapped in there a long time ago that even the monsters call monster. Things that don’t come from this side of creation, and shouldn’t ever be here. And it’s one of those things that’s come creeping out of the dark to hole up in our cozy little corner of reality.”

“So what’s your interest in Cas?” Dean asks, tone unfriendly.

Crowley holds up one finger then reaches inside his coat to an inner pocket. He draws out a brown envelope and slides it across the table. Dean glances down at it, then reluctantly opens it up. Five large photos are inside and he spreads them on the table. One is a field of dead plants, withered and pale so that it’s uncertain what the crop was in the first place. The next is dead animals, lying in a line across a landscape as though they’ve fallen down as something passed by. The rest all show bone white human corpses, none of which display any obvious wounds save for the chalky skin and what that indicates about their physical state.

“These last three, they’re all Leviathans?” Sam says, and Crowley nods. “What about this other stuff?”

“I’d say portents, but we all know they’re side effects,” the demon king shrugs. “All from Oregon, dotted around the northern half.”

The brothers exchange glances. Their current location isn’t too far north of the state line; it’s but a stone’s throw to Nevada from here. “So it’s on the move,” Sam says and Crowley shrugs again.

“How is it that we’ve not heard about this yet?” Dean asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I mean, dead animals, chalk people, that’s gotta make the news.”

Crowley grimaces and looks put upon. “I’d love to say it was my people’s doing, but it’s nothing to do with us. This is all them, trying to keep it under wraps.”

“Them? The Leviathans?”

Crowley nods and leans back in his chair. “This is putting a real dent in their plans for world domination. A creature not even they can kill, that’s only too happy to start sucking on their black gooey goodness to power itself up.”

Sam gives Crowley a strange look, then something occurs to him. “Wait a second, not even they can kill this thing?”

The demon dips his head in confirmation. “Not even them. Now, boys. This is the part where you answer  _ my  _ questions. Where the hell is Castiel? And don’t say you don’t know, you two always have some touchy-feely link back to him going on.”

For a long moment no-one speaks. Then Dean replies, “Castiel’s not around. We haven’t seen him.”

Crowley holds his gaze for a second, searching it for the truth, then looks to Sam. Finding no deceit there he hisses a curse between his teeth and his fingers tighten hard around his whiskey tumbler.

“Why is it so important to you to find Castiel?” Sam asks slowly. “If you need an angel to kill this thing, then surely just send a message to Heaven and let them take care of it.”

Crowley laughs shortly, then leans in suddenly his voice low. “Not just any angel, Moose. This thing is a bloody monster from the outer dimensions, from before the beginning of time. Not local to this plane of existence or anything remotely close to it. It’s so weird and wonderful that the only thing that can kill it is a first degree celestial being. An original.”

Sam looks to Dean, and then back to Crowley. “An archangel.”

“Precisely,” the demon snaps. “And the last I checked you boys had either locked them in the Cage and thrown away the key, or at the very least been intimately involved in their permanent demises.”

The bar around them is filled with the quiet murmur of its few patrons, and the music from the jukebox in the corner is the only thing keeping their conversation from reaching others. Crowley stares from one brother to the other and waits for them to absorb the implications of his words.

Dean shakes his head as though to clear it, and holds up one hand. “So, why are you looking for Castiel?”

Crowley grimaces in annoyance and snaps, “I don’t know if you noticed, but for the past year he’s been the closest thing to a Major Power we’ve had on this plane of existence. He’s our last, best hope and all that bollocks.”

“Castiel is gone,” Dean snarls. “And even if he was still around then what he did messed him up so badly I don’t think he’s in any shape to go head to head with some evil from the land before time or whatever.”

Crowley’s mouth thins into a flat, unimpressed line. “Well, you boys better hope that isn’t the case. Because if this thing is allowed to run around out there unchecked, it’s not going to stop when it runs out of Leviathan chew toys. It’ll be coming straight after the rest of us.  _ All  _ of us. You’ve seen what it’s capable of so far, now you just imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s juiced up on Leviathan power.”

Taking a fifty dollar bill out of his wallet, Crowley slaps it down on the table and rises to his feet. “Now, unless either of you still have a direct line to one of the big boys from up above, I suggest you get out there and start tracking down our errant godling and get his feathery ass back here stat.”

He leaves them then, threading his way through the tables with a wink to the scowling server, and heads out into the night. Dean slumps back in his chair with an explosive sigh of breath, and curses soundly. “Well that’s just freaking wonderful,” he says.

Sam isn’t listening. He’s watching as Lucifer cheerfully pushes the bar door closed behind the departing demon, blowing a kiss that Crowley never feels. Door closed, he turns back to look at Sam and folds his arms, gracing him with a wicked smirk as though to say,  _ if only he knew. _

“Fuck,” Dean says softly, putting his elbows on the table and resting his face in his hands. “So I guess we try and track down Cas then.”

Sam looks at his brother’s tired expression, and then back to the hallucinatory archangel standing by the door.

“I guess,” he says.

Lucifer winks at him.


	2. The Summoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monster claims more victims and Lucifer provides Sam with a solution- of sorts.

It may be that the idea is already in his head, but it’s not until Dean puts it into words, albeit obliquely, that Sam puts real consideration into how it might work. They return to Rufus’ hunting cabin, not quite defeated but certainly at a loss as to how to proceed. 

“Time to hit the books,” Dean says with a scowl. “If only we could just summon us an archangel and twist his arm into doing what we want. Dear god, I never thought I’d say it but demons have their benefits.”

Sam had given him a weak smile at the time, but the idea of it is stuck in his head, echoing back at him every time he lets his mind wander. He’s thinking about it first thing in the morning as he screws the cap back onto the juice bottle and returns it to the fridge. He’s hearing it repeat over and over in his head in time with the rhythm of his feet when he goes out to run just after dawn. It slides into his head between one thought and the next as he searches out new reports on the internet, looking for dead Leviathans, live ones, a bell that tolls over and over.

Dean is on the phone to a contact, Sam watching and listening to the frustration that threads through his voice when the idea crystallises from something abstract to something that maybe they could, maybe they  _ should,  _ be investigating.

“Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. If you hear anything, you know my number.”

Dean shakes his head and Sam raises an eyebrow. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. It’s like he’s vanished off the face of the planet.”

“He’ll be out there,” Sam says quietly, and then before Dean can snap a reply, “Maybe we need to consider other options.”

“Like what, Sammy?”

Sam raises his hands in a placating gesture. He understands Dean’s frustration, but his brother’s desire to approach every problem with only fists and charm to carry them through has always been his downfall. They have been told outright, if they choose to believe Crowley, that this creature is something they don’t have a hope of killing on their own.

“Maybe if we can’t get one angel, then we could use a whole bunch of them, working together.”

Dean stares at him in silence. Then he shakes his head sharply, and looks away. “Yeah, okay. Let’s just invite the whole heavenly host down here for a conflab. We can crack open a few beers, chat about old times, talk about our plans for the future. Really, Sam. You think that’s going to get us anything but burnt at the heavenly stake?” 

Sam closes his eyes and presses the pad of his thumb to the bridge of his nose. “Okay, Dean. Unless you have a better idea-”

“Sure! And while we’re at it, let’s ask them if they know a way to collect call Michael in the Cage and see if he wants to lend a hand. Help the family out, so to speak.”

There’s a retort waiting just on the tip of Sam’s tongue, when Bobby’s voice interrupts.

“When you two boys are quite done, we’ve got another one come in. About a hundred and fifty miles from the last. Jamie’s sent a video through, you might want to see it.”

  
  


*

  
The video shows the body of a woman, a florist in Burns. She’s lying on her side behind the counter of her store, surrounded by broken glass. The damage to the mirrored wall behind the counter indicates that she didn’t go down without a fight. Jamie pans the camera over her body, and then up around the inside of the store, along rows of empty pots and withered plants. The store had been full of a colourful profusion of plants once, but now it stands dusty and pale, filled with dead, white flowers that crumble to nothing when touched.

“How has it gotten that far so fast?” Sam asks. “How is it travelling?”

Bobby shakes his head and replays the video again. “If it’s non-corporeal, then who’s to say how it gets about.”

“Anything else turn up strange?” Dean asks, eyes on the screen.

“Not yet. Anything comes up, Jamie’ll report in.”

“Okay,” Dean looks around, grabs his coat off the back of the chair, and then heads towards their shared room.

Sam exchanges a glance with Bobby then hurriedly follows. “Dude, wait. You’re going out there?”

“Yeah,” Dean replies shortly. “I’m not sitting on my ass here waiting for it to eat its way across the country. We need more information on what the hell it is so we can work out how to kill it.”

“Fine, I’ll come with.”

“No.”

The sharp retort brings Sam up short, and he cocks his head to one side in confusion. “What, you’re just going to go out there on your own?”

Dean visibly makes himself relax, putting up a palm to forestall any further protest. “Look, Sam. Even if this thing really is as dangerous as Crowley seems to think it is, currently it’s not interested in humans. It’s just going after Leviathans. It’s a long way to Burns from here, and we need someone on research trying to find out anything useful. I’m not relying on a demon to tell me how to take on something like this.”

“Bobby can do research,” Sam protests.

“Bobby’s trying to hold the fort with the Leviathans.”

They stare at each other for a second, Dean stubborn, Sam disbelieving. Then Sam swallows hard. “Is this about the visions?” he asks.

“No, Sam,” Dean is shaking his head. “I just-”

“Because if it is, I have those under control. You  _ cannot  _ keep shutting me out of this stuff.”

His brother looks pained, “This is not about the visions. This is about us making the best use of our time. We need to pull together on this. I need you here finding us a way to stop that thing.”

“Castiel can-”

“Cas is  _ not  _ coming back!”

Sam leans away a little in surprise. He’d not expected to hear Dean voice that fear, though he knows it’s been simmering at the back of his brother’s mind for weeks now. After seeing what Castiel did, what he became there at the end, Sam’s not entirely sure he can come up with the right words to contradict him. Seeing the hurt in Dean’s eyes, he tries for a comforting reply and realises that the only ones he has will sound trite. If nothing else, Dean hates trite.

“Okay,” he says instead. “Okay, fine. I’ll keep searching. Bobby said he’s got caches of stuff stored away, so I’ll start going through them.”

“Good,” Dean nods, clearly relieved to have avoided the fight. “Good, well, that’s good. You’ll come up with something.”

They share a look that passes close to optimism, but caution makes it fall short. Nonetheless, Dean slaps him on the arm and starts re-packing his bags. “I’ll stay on the road this time,” he says. “No chance this thing’s going to give us a break. It doesn’t work like that.”

Nodding in wry acknowledgement, Sam can only agree.

  
  


*

  
  


Dean spends a week on the road, tracking shadows and strange whispers; Sam a week amongst the ragged remnants of Bobby’s books researching anything that sounds like the thing they’re up against. It’s like old times, like nothing at all out of the ordinary, except this time they know so much more than they ever used to. The trail in Burns ends in doctors that won’t open their records without lengthy legal intervention, and a police department that blames outsiders, drug dealers and the wrong sort of people. Visions of white dogs and strange lights reflected in the windows are not tolerated. Burns does not believe in the supernatural.

While Sam pores over tomes so old the foxing has eaten its way across the pages, devouring whole swathes of meaning, Dean cruises the back roads of Oregon, chasing ghosts. The days are quiet, filled with dead ends for the both of them. Offices turn Dean away, families close their doors to him. Curtain twitching abounds, and there’s no reason to go inside anyway because there’s nothing to find. The monster is long gone. 

Sam’s research has moved from Purgatory to other realms, the lands beyond the edge of Creation. He looks for dragons and angels, then things older than both of them. Titans and primordial beings, and then, finally, in desperation, Lovecraft. Ancient beings and things that move in strange angles, all of it so bizarre and outlandish that it can only be fiction. He strokes his fingertips down the sleek black cover of a re-issued “Complete Works Of”, and remembers that once upon a time they never used to believe in angels either. Not really.

He goes to bed thinking of Castiel, falls asleep to the repetition of foiled plans, failed leads and trails gone cold.

  
  


*

  
  


What he sees first is his brother. Dean, in the darkness, outlined by a window full of light. What he feels first is the pressure. It’s like the invisible, inexorable pull of a magnet on iron, but it’s acting on him - in his head, inside his chest in a great curve of force that makes him feel as though his body is being turned inside-out. The world is folding along a strange angle, and he feels it even if he cannot see it.

Maybe he’s on his knees, it’s hard to say. Dean is walking towards the window, his gun held low in both hands, and the curtains are blowing out around him even though the window is closed. There’s light, bright and cold and fractured, like the slick of oil on water. Something is speaking, and its words sound like music of the sweetest, most awful kind. It’s nothing human, and although its voice pierces the darkness like the flicker of lightning, it’s nothing close to angel either. It’s a high, crystalline note, and the deep, reverberant tolling of a far-distant bell. Everywhere is the scent of flowers.

Sam struggles against the curve of pressure crushing him along a line his body doesn’t understand. He feels fear, but no pain. Speaking is impossible, but he tries to call out regardless. Dean is advancing into the light, and Sam knows that if he ever touches it he’ll never see his brother again. This is not the cold, perfect light of Heaven. It is the lure dangled by the creature that wants nothing more than to devour.

“Dean,” he gasps soundlessly, and then the world becomes blinding. He feels heat and knows that this is the end. The twisting grows stronger, the terrible voice more piercing and he cannot hold on, cannot free himself. Then suddenly, like a ray of perfect light, so starkly natural against the overwhelming wrongness that blazes before him it’s like coming up for air, he is wrapped in cool serenity. He feels something brush his face, light as snowflakes, strong as spun steel, and someone whispers,  _ “Samuel-” _

He jerks awake to the electronic shrill of his cell phone, staring blankly down at the table where his research books lie open and askew. Morning sunlight spills through the cabin window and his cheek is burning where it’s been warming him through the glass. His cell is vibrating its way slowly across the wood, and he recognises his brother’s name on the display. He grabs clumsily for it, still dream-addled.

“Dean?”

“Sammy.”

His brother’s tone makes Sam sit up straight, snapping him fully awake. He sounds bad, he sounds like someone’s died. “What is it?”

“It’s happened again. It took another Leviathan. A woman. She was a teacher at the local school,” he pauses and Sam can hear him breathing, fast and angry. “Sammy, it took the kids too.”

  
  


*

  
  


Sam is aware that his rage burns cold. He knows that anger makes him withdrawn, driven, analytical. It has always given him the strength necessary to make the hard choices, the ones that can’t be undone. It would have made him a worrying person to cross, had he ever lived a normal life. As a hunter, as a man that has walked into Hell and back, it makes him shockingly dangerous. After his call with Dean is ended, he moves into the warded back room of Rufus’ cabin, where all the most sensitive research materials are kept under lock and key.

Sam stands in the middle of the small room and casts his eyes over the rough shelves of books, a lifetime and a half’s collection of hunting materials. Movement at his shoulder tells him that Lucifer has followed him in. Absorbed in his research he hasn’t noticed the Devil for the last week, but now he flickers into existence at Sam’s side. He stands with arms folded, head tilted to the left as he looks askance at the man who sent him back to Hell. He’s waiting for something, but Sam can’t be bothered with the games of a hallucination today. It’s such a trivial distraction when the world has welcomed another monster into its presence.

The room is silent save for the muted rustle of the forest outside, and Sam can feel his pulse throb in his temple, beating out the rhythm of his fury. Over and over again these creatures come for humanity, and each time people like the Winchester brothers - outsiders to society, hanging on barely by the fingernails - each time people like them beat the monsters back. Sacrifice and demon deals, jerry-rigged spells and seat of their pants escapades have seen them through in the past. But this time there’s no-one left who can make a deal, and God’s been gone a long time. Prayer only works if there’s someone out there listening.

Lucifer moves then, a big cat prowling in a too-small cage, and Sam watches him cross to the bookshelves, hands shoved into his jeans as he scans his eyes along the rows of books. It takes a moment before he reaches up and pulls one out - a slender volume bound in worn black leather. He returns to Sam and stands directly in front of him, holding out the book for him to take.

Sam stares at him in silence, feeling the coil of anger in the muscles of his shoulders, the pull of a sneer threatening to lift his lip. Lucifer gives the book a little shake and raises his eyebrows playfully, and finally Sam’s gaze falls to the faded lettering on the cover. It’s the idea that Dean sparked over a week ago, the one that Sam has muted and shoved to the back of his mind behind the gut-deep fear it provokes - that one.

Anger, and dread, and now maybe desperation too, make him reach out and take the book from the Devil’s hand. Sam breathes out long and slow, then opens the scuffed cover.

Lucifer smiles.

  
  


*

  
  


“What are you thinking, boy?”

Bobby is looking at him in mingled curiosity and concern. It makes Sam pause and take a deep breath before he turns the book around and slides it across the table for the older man to read.

“This,” he says, tapping a finger on the open page.

Bobby looks down at the short paragraph, scanning the latin and the diagram next to it. His lips are pressed together in a grim line, but he reads the entire thing before he replies.

“That won’t do it.”

“Bobby,” Sam says, “We  _ need  _ something this powerful to fight that thing. You heard what it did to those kids, and I don’t think it’s going to stop there. Crowley told us that the only thing that can-”

“Crowley! Pah!”

“Bobby,  _ listen.  _ We don’t trust Crowley either, but if there’s one thing he’s proven over the years it’s that he’ll do anything to save his own skin. If he’s worried about this creature to the extent he’s willing to give information like that out for free, then I think we should take him seriously.”

Bobby is shaking his head at him. “I am listening, boy. You’re not. I’m not saying that Crowley’s lying to you about needing an archangel, I know what Crowley’s capable of. What I’m saying is that spell you’ve found won’t do it. These creatures you’re trying to call, they’re locked in the best prison in all creation, made by God Himself. A piddly little summoning spell like that’s not going to cut it. If that worked don’t you think someone would have gone and done it by now?”

Sam leans back in his seat, setting his shoulders before he replies. “No-one else has ever had the same type of link to them that Dean and I have.”

Bobby snorts agreement. “Ain’t that the truth.”

He flips slowly through the pages of the small book, before returning to the summoning ritual that Sam has found. “What makes you think this one is any better than the ones we already know for summoning angels?”

“Second paragraph, third line down,” Sam replies quickly. “It talks about having a link with the thing you’re calling up. In fact, it says it won’t work unless you’ve had prior contact, some kind of profound bond. And then, the next page, it says the things it’ll work on are broad. Demons, spirits, elementals and angels.”

Bobby hums an unconvinced note, and keeps reading. “You realise it says the spell won’t work unless the thing you’re calling  _ wants  _ to come. Agrees to, even. You’re asking it to put its head in a noose and take a step off the edge of a cliff.”

“Yeah,” Sam swallows. “I know that. But it says you control them as long as you word the spell correctly. They have to do what you tell them. And I figure life inside the Cage is, is not what they want. So they’ll take the chance.”

Bobby stares hard at him for a long few seconds. “You’re thinking of calling  _ him,  _ aren’t you?”

“I beat him once. I’ll beat him again.”

“He was in your head, Sam,” Bobby says slowly. “He still is, from what you told us. Are you so sure you can keep a grip on him this time?”

“I have to, Bobby. Dean never let Michael in; I don’t think he can make this thing work.”

The older man sighs and looks down at the book again. He shakes his head slowly. “This doesn’t have the spell in it.”

Sam nods, “I know. I was hoping…”

“What? That I might just happen to have it lying around?” Bobby asks, incredulity making his tone sharp. “Sam, summoning is an artform, and a dangerous one at that. It’s not something you can just get by on with prayer and scotch tape!”

Although not entirely unexpected, the response nonetheless makes Sam deflate. He’s not entirely sure what he’d been expecting, but if Bobby doesn’t know where to lay hands on a spell like this, then it’s going to be the start of a long and frustrating search to find someone, or something, that will. It’ll mean going back to a creature like Crowley, and the last thing Sam wants these days is to be involved with demons. He runs a tired hand through his hair and shakes his head in frustration.

Bobby’s chair creaks as the older man leans back. There’s a long pause before he huffs softly. “Luckily, I know a professional.”

  
  


*

  
  


This is how, five days later, Sam Winchester finds himself walking along a narrow tree-lined road in the suburbs of Saint Malo, France, a piece of crumpled note paper in his hand. He looks up at tall, white-painted houses, packed close together in an imposing row, and hears a soft breeze stirring the leaves of the trees overhead. The city is beautiful and old, and the wind that threads its way through the streets carries the scent of the sea. After the claustrophobia of three separate plane flights, one of which took over ten hours, he welcomes the freedom of the cool morning.

He hasn’t seen Lucifer for five days, and the worry of it gnaws at the edge of his consciousness. It galls him that not seeing the Devil is as bad as having him at his side, but Lucifer is subtle and the expectation of his presence is as torturous as the whispering in his ear. He pushes it back behind the concern for the staggering amount of money they’ve spent getting him here, and the sturdiness of his false documentation. Still, this could be the end - again, and he’s long since given up on concerning himself with a good credit rating for the future in any sense of the word or method of acquisition. 

Sam doesn’t speak French, having only a rudimentary knowledge of the very basic phrases, but Bobby has promised him that his specialist contact speaks English. He looks down at the name on his piece of paper, and then back up at the tall, thin house whose name matches the one scratched out in Bobby’s tiny hand. Gathering himself, Sam pauses to allow his taxi to pull away and pass, before crossing the street to the wrought iron gate that guards the summoner’s neat front garden.

  
  


*

  
  


Ms Anisa Virani is an older woman who wears her long black hair back in a loose plait. Her fingers are encircled with gold rings and there are three chains around her neck, the longest of which disappears behind the fabric of her dove-grey blouse. Although Sam knows that she’s been expecting him, he wonders if she always dresses with such formality in her own home. From the leather furniture, to the original oil paintings she has hung on the walls of her three storey house, he suspects that she does.

When she smiles at him, her face creases into warm lines and he’s reminded suddenly of his mother. The very idea of it is preposterous; this lady is far away from his mother in looks and mannerisms alike, but still there’s an indefinable quality about her that makes him want to trust. He dips his head in embarrassment, and tries to gather himself.

“Bobby Singer sent me. I ah-, I think he said why? Thank you for letting me come by the way, Ms Virani, it’s a real help.”

Her smiles turns fond and she nods once. “Robert Singer and I go back a long way, young man,” she says, and her accent is French mixed with something else he can’t quite place. “If it were not for his word I would not have believed it possible that a boy from the other side of the world would come seeking me out. Searching, as you are, for such a thing.”

Sam inclines his head and takes a breath. What he has to say is hard to believe, and harder still to phrase in such a way that he doesn’t come across as dangerous, stupid, or completely insane.

“I think Bobby said why it is we need information on this spell. Did he tell you what it is we’re up against?” In truth, amongst the whirlwind of preparation for travel to Europe, the mad scramble and dash for money, documents, tickets, Bobby had been remarkably reticent regarding the information he’d provided to his professional contact.

Ms Virani blinks slowly at him and takes a sip of her tea. “Dear boy,” she murmurs, “Everyone who is anyone knows what you are “up against.””

Sam straightens in surprise. “I-, what do you mean?”

“The creature that came out of Purgatory with Eve is one of the old horrors. One of the entities that existed long before God folded the fabric of reality into the shape that forms today’s world.” She gestures with her hands as she speaks, closing her palms together as though shutting a book. “Those of us who understand such things felt its presence the moment it surfaced.”

“Then why didn’t anyone say anything?” Sam asks, aghast. “This thing has been killing people! It’s been killing kids!”

Ms Virani gives him a shrewd look. “Do you imagine that we did not try? At the very least do you think we did not look to its coming if only to guard against it? Young man, we are not the ones who can defeat this creature. That burden is yours.”

“You could have made contact! You could have told us what it was before it got to where it is now. We could have saved those children.”

“No,” she replies, and the word is spoken with such authority that it stops Sam short. “You could not. We could not. Until very recently its presence was a mere ripple on the fabric of this reality. It was hidden from our sight as much as it was from yours. Do not fool yourself into believing that this creature is anything so simple as the monsters you are used to hunting. This entity is foreign to our plane of existence. It lives and dies by different rules, and only obeys the laws of this universe because it has not yet gained the power to do otherwise.”

She pauses for a moment, the silence filled only by the stately ticking of the grandmother clock that stands in one corner of the room. “When the signs revealed the nature of the creature we knew then that we had no hope of defeating it. It became apparent at that point that the salvation of this world would hinge upon the actions of the last of the true vessels. You see, Samuel Winchester, as your actions once saved the world, so too did they lead to this situation. The very beings that hold the power to protect us have been sealed by your hand.”

“So then you know why I’m here. You know what it is that I want to do,” Sam says calmly.

“Yes,” she replies, and sets down her teacup. “I was waiting for your call long before Robert Singer ever picked up the telephone.”

Rising to her feet she smooths the folds of her navy skirt suit, and indicates that he should follow her up the narrow staircase that curves in the corner of the room. “It is only fitting that the one to seal the archangels away should be the one to return them to the world.”

  
  


*

  
  


The scent of special incenses stays with Sam for days after he leaves, and even years later when he catches the glint of light off a woman’s jewellery, he will remember the movement of Ms Virani’s hands as she sketched out the summoning sigil for him.

The room in which the summoner showed him her art was at the very top of her house. A converted attic, the ceiling slanted on either side, inset with a single large window through which the morning sunlight fell across a desk stacked with orderly folders of paper, and hung all over with trinkets and jewellery. Slender chains were draped in coils, and hooks full of assorted rings were attached to the wood of a tall-backed work station. Boxes of metal beads and glittering talismans lay open like the accumulated treasure of a hoarding dragon, neatly arranged in colour and type. Sam had run his eyes across the collection and estimated it at several thousand dollars for the visible items alone.

He remembers her advice as she gathered together the items for the spell, and his surprise when she told him that the main component would be him. “This spell is about a bond, young man. Without it, it will fail completely. You may light candles and burn incense, but if the creature you wish to reach is not interested in such things, then you may as well paint the room in neon pink for all it matters.”

Even so, when she drew the summoning sigil out for him Sam was mildly surprised to learn that it didn’t need to be drawn in blood.

“I thought blood was an essential component in binding and summoning rituals,” he’d said.

As she’d handed him the rolled paper she’d nodded. “It is. But your bond has already been written in blood. Generations of it.”

“What about a sacrifice?” He’d asked cautiously. In his experience, there is always a sacrifice. “What is it that’s stopped anyone else from casting this spell already?”

“You,” She’d replied simply. “No-one else has such a powerful link to him. There is no stronger link than a vessel that has already said yes. And without your agreement, your consent, this spell will also fail. Consent cannot be tortured out of you, it must be given freely and without duress. And then him. He too must agree. Young man, this is a very delicate spell that deserves its place in mythology simply for the intense difficulty in meeting its requirements.”

“And the sacrifice?” he’d pressed.

She had shrugged. “You will get out of it what you put in. No more, no less.”

It had taken four hours to go over the necessary details of the summoning ritual. Its simplicity had been deceptive, for once she was happy that he could recreate the sigil, she’d taught him how to add the Enochian name for the creature he was summoning, and then she’d told him about the binding laws.

“I do not need to tell you how important it is that you maintain control of the archangel,” she told him flatly. Not once had she asked which of the caged angels the brothers would summon. They both knew that she was already tailoring her advice to the summoning of Lucifer. “You will do this by the construction of rules within the framework of your summoning. Much as you would write a contract with a demon, when summoning with this spell one creates a set of binding laws by which the summons must abide, or else it can no longer remain on this plane.”

Sam had nodded, sitting back in his chair and steeling himself for the discussion. He’d thought long and hard about this on the flights across to France, anticipating the danger, the sheer strain of voluntarily calling a creature like Lucifer back to his side. The things Lucifer has done to him- his mind refuses to look at them. Ms Virani saw it in his eyes and her mouth pursed.

“This spell is designed to control,” she said. “To bind the will of the summons to your own. In speaking the summoning you will lay down your rules, and if the summons agrees it will be subject to them for the duration of its stay. I suggest you create no more than seven rules, the ideal is three.”

Long experience gave Sam all the necessary training he needed to come up with something simple, yet strong. He kept to the three rules she had recommended, keeping his dependencies broad enough to cover most situations, yet specific enough that they could not be easily wormed out of. If nothing else Sam knows, and rightfully fears, the archangel’s cold intellect.

Finally, she’d shown him how to seal the spell. “You require a focus, a material component that will hold the power of the spell, anchor it in this plane and bind the elements together. Something such as these.”

With one hand she drew the longest chain from beneath the neck of her blouse, and held it out on her palm. Looking down at the golden cat figure, Sam suddenly understood the extensive display of jewellery, both on her workbench and on her person.

“Etch the laws of your summoning into something such as this,” she said, “And for as long as you wear it upon your person, the spell will hold. Break it, and you end the summoning.”

She had helped him pick out something suitable to use, and sitting now on the return flight to LAX, his forehead pressed to the cool glass of the tiny porthole window, he runs the links of it through his fingers. He had decided upon a bracelet; links thick enough to be suitable for a man’s wrist, with a small engraved plate in its middle. Beneath his thumb he can feel the lettering of the three laws Anisa Virani had etched into the gold for him. Her skills and equipment had been invaluable, but when he had mentioned payment she had simply waved him away.

“What price the fate of the world?” she had asked, and served him dinner before he left.

What price indeed, Sam thinks as he watches the lights of the US mainland pass far below. It’s nine pm local time and he’s exhausted, having been in the air for eleven hours. Despite flying out from Charles de Gaulle at seven in the evening, he’s been unable to catch any sleep. His mind will not let up, endlessly spinning in circles around all the things he’s been told. Now the decision is all but made, he finds himself hesitating. Ms Virani had been unable to tell him anything further about the nature of the creature they are taking on, no easy ways to kill it, or what it even looks like. All she would give him were dire warnings that it would be unlike anything he had ever before encountered.

The second punishment of the long flight is the time it gives him to consider his plan. He doesn’t know what Bobby has told Dean regarding his sudden absence, and he’s not heard anything from his brother, partially because he didn’t buy a roaming tariff for his cell, but also because he hasn’t asked. He’ll face Dean when he gets home, and by that point he knows his case for what he intends to do will be all the stronger. There  _ is  _ no other option. There is nothing left on this plane of existence with the power to overcome the creature that’s invaded. They need an archangel, and Sam Winchester is the only one with a real chance of bringing one back into existence.

Even so, the thought of seeing Lucifer again, of being anywhere near him, controlled or not, makes his flesh crawl. He still sees the hate in the Devil’s eyes every time he tries to sleep. The madness and the sadistic glee, that of a cruel child allowed free rein to torture the object of its frustrations. There are many things he remembers from his time in hell, very few of which he will ever speak of to Dean, or to anyone. All of them crowd his thoughts now as he thinks of this insane plan he is intending to undertake.

“One last thing,” Ms Virani had said. “Your attitude will shape the nature of the spell itself. Be sure you are sound in mind before you travel this path. If he answers your call, you ask him to jump from one cage to another. Be sure your cage is more inviting, even if its bars are just as strong.”

Sam isn’t entirely sure what to make of the summoner’s last words of advice. He knows full well what he wants for Lucifer - for him to be locked away securely for the rest of eternity. He has no interest in the Devil’s comfort, only his obedience.

“Sam.”

The seat beside him has sat empty for the entirety of the flight, but he knows already who is speaking to him. Lucifer leans across him to look out the window, crowding him up against the side of the plane, and Sam twists to put his back to the curve of the wall. It brings him face to face with the Devil, so close he can feel the cold fire that coils in the archangel’s chest, spilling out on his breath. His eyes are very blue and the smile he wears is entirely too amused.

“Hello, Sam.”

Sam can feel the tight clutch of dread in his stomach, the shock of fear that leaves him feeling as though the very plane is shaking around him.  _ There is no-one there there is no-one there _ he tells himself. He breaks eye contact and looks across the plane at the seats in the centre row. A woman is reading a magazine, pointing something out to the man beside her. Her laughter is light and excited. They lean their heads in close to one another, intimate and happy.

“Is this how it’s got to be, Sam?” Lucifer tilts his head to one side, moving so that he’s back in Sam’s line of sight. “Is this how you’re going to treat me?”

He counts. From one to whatever it takes. Focus on the numbers and block out everything else.  _ One, two, three- close eyes, don’t look _ -

“Some things, Sam, some things we can’t undo. Some things we just have to take responsibility for. I think you understand that. I think you know how this has to go.”

Sam can feel the weight of the Devil’s body close to his own. Lucifer isn’t touching him, but the gravity of his presence is enough to make breathing difficult. The low chatter of passenger voices cuts out and Sam swallows. Lucifer has done something to the other people on the plane. He doesn’t want to open his eyes and see what. When he has the Devil under his control Lucifer will not be able to do anything like this ever again. Sam will make sure of it.

“Sam, Sam. Don’t you remember the fun we had? Think of the fun we’re  _ going _ to have. Think of the things I’m going to do to you, Sam.”

He turns away then, twisting in his seat to escape the cold touch of the Devil’s breath on his lips. Too close, too confined, too many people he doesn’t need to see him have this breakdown. Sam leans his forehead against the tiny oval window and feels the deep thrumming vibration of the plane’s engines through the glass. The buzz of it makes his teeth tingle and his ever-present headache reverberate in sympathetic pain.

“Once I’m back, Sam, I’m going to lay you out and flay you alive. I’m going to tear the skin from you in strips, and then I’m going to fu-”

_ “Shut up!” _ Sam hisses.

“Oh Sam, if you won’t listen to that then let me tell you what I’m going to do to the rest of the world while I let you rest. Because I will, Sam. I’ll give you that. Time to catch your breath before we carry on. When you can’t scream any more I’ll turn to them. When every last ounce of beautiful pain is wrung from your body I’m going to turn to them and wipe them from the face of this planet, just as I should have done right at the start.”

He can smell smoke. Something is burning and he knows it’s Lucifer playing with him, but then the screaming starts and he knows that the other passengers are on fire. He can feel the heat of the flames licking up against his back, feel the chairs shaking as they writhe in agony. He can feel their feet hammering on the back of his seat.

_ Focus on the view, _ he thinks in desperation, and opens his eyes.

The world below is on fire. Blackened plains of ash spread in all directions, threaded through by rivers of flowing lava so bright in the smoke-darkened skies that it hurts his eyes. The ruined remnants of cities rise up, blasted and skeletal, their skyscrapers torn open to the elements or toppled into the streets below. Around him the air is filled with the screams of the tortured dying.

“It’s going to be a blast,” the Devil purrs in his ear.


	3. The Summoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are they really doing this? It would seem they are. The brothers butt heads but the choice is already made.

There’s nothing but the soft drone of insects and the whisper of the breeze through the branches of the trees. Dean sits on the porch of the cabin in a dusty wicker chair he’s pulled out of the roof storage and watches the moon slowly rising. He has his father’s diary open in his lap, for reassurance more than any hope of finding anything of use within its well-thumbed pages. Beneath it there’s a spiral-bound notebook, folded open to the page that lists every detail they have on the creature from Purgatory. The list is shorter than it needs to be.

For the past week there’s been nothing. No further incidents of chalked Leviathans, and no further human casualties. No-one has called in with any reports of strange white dogs or lights in the sky. There’s been no more rotten crops or people wandering the night time streets in their pyjamas raving about angels. No more so than usual anyway. It’s as though the creature has fed and then gone back into hiding to digest its meal.

Disgusted by the thought, Dean takes a swig of his beer and shakes his head in frustrated anger. He hasn’t heard from Sam since Bobby sent him off chasing spells in Europe, and although it’s not like them to hold onto each other’s skirts every second of the day, some word in person would have gone a long way towards easing the overwhelming sense of dread that’s begun to well up in Dean’s chest. No matter what he’s agreed with Sam, he knows full well that his brother is not yet right. Not yet back to how it used to be between them, and that thought tightens his jaw and makes him scowl. Back to how they used to be before means back to crazy psychic powers and demon blood and goddamned Ruby hanging around. What he means is that he just wants his brother to be just his brother again.

With the nail of his thumb he scratches at the label on the beer bottle and wonders if he’s done the right thing. If perhaps he should be angrier at Bobby for sending Sam out on some solo mission without asking him first. Sam is his responsibility and every time Dean lets him out of his sight for a goddamned second something goes wrong.

He runs a hand through hair grown too long and tugs. He needs a haircut, and he’ll be damned if he lets himself end up looking like his floppy-haired brother. With a soft bark of laughter he finds himself right back to wondering if Sam is okay. They know he made it over there because he called Bobby from a payphone in Paris. What they don’t know is if he’s had any success getting this Virani woman that Bobby knows to hand over the goods.

In truth, Dean had thought he’d be angrier. He has to give it to the old boy though, Bobby knows how to handle the pair of them. Send Sam off to grab the spell while he explains to Dean exactly what the spell is for. He knows full well the history the two of them have with Michael, and summoning him is right up there with the top three most stupid things they’ve ever done in their long and chequered hunting career. This way the spell’s in their hands without the need for the pair of them to argue over going to get it. And if nothing else, Dean trusts Sam to put together a spell with this woman that’s completely ironclad. His brother is the best spell writer he knows, always has been.

Behind him, the cabin door creaks open, and Dean shifts his chair out of the way to let Bobby out.

They exchange a quiet greeting and Bobby hands him a refill before coming to stand next to him, one hand pushed into his pocket.

“Sam called, said he’s on his way back. He’s got the spell.”

Dean lets out a long, relieved breath, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease. “That’s good news, Bobby. When’s he due in?”

“Couple more hours. He’s getting a flight to Glacier Park in twenty. I’ll go down and pick him up when it’s time.”

“It’s all right, I’ll get him-”

“No. You stay here and get some rest. You’ve been working like a dog since six, and one of us needs to be awake enough tomorrow.”

What he’s really saying is that he knows full well that Dean’s not slept a full night in the last week, up working the books, the radios, and worrying about where Sam is. Bobby has long since given up telling him outright to get his act together and look after himself, aware perhaps of his own hypocrisy but also knowing full well that Dean’s as stubborn as his dad was when it comes to throwing himself into a case.

“Fair enough,” Dean says.

For a moment they both look up at the stars and the rising moon, watching its slow climb. It’s coming up to eleven and Dean can feel the long days pulling at him, making his muscles ache and his stomach feel queasy. The beer doesn’t help, but it’s keeping him off the stronger stuff for now. Every time he lets his mind wander he sees chalk and the face of a woman whose child is gone. Gone for good, gone forever. A gas leak, an explosion. Do they really think people will swallow this crap? How any parent could ever let up asking, demanding, grieving. He thinks of Ben and has to stop then, make himself think of the spell that Sam is bringing back and what they’re going to do with it.

“This spell better be powerful, Bobby. It’s got to be enough to hold an archangel. You know what colossal dicks those douchebags are. If it’s going to bring Michael here then it’s got to hold him too. Stop him from going on some kind of rampage. If we’re not careful we’re going to end up with Armageddon all over again.”

Bobby doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Dean feels him shift beside him.

“Anisa’s the best,” he says eventually. “And you know how good Sam is with spells. Between the pair of them they’ll write something foolproof.”

“They better.”

He catches the movement of Bobby’s baseball cap out of the corner of his eye as the other man looks down at him suddenly. “If you’re worried, Dean, then why don’t you keep looking for Castiel? Crowley said he was the other option.”

“Crowley can keep his opinions to himself. He’s a demon.”

“He’ll look out for himself when his hide’s under threat,” Bobby says, mouth pursed in a frown.

“Cut it out, Bobby,” Dean snaps. “Castiel’s not an option. He made his damned choice and now we’re dealing with the fallout from it. If Castiel wanted to help he’d be here helping already.”

He can feel Bobby staring at him in the gloom, and hates the judgement he can feel hanging there. _I pray to him every day,_ he thinks. _Every goddamned day and he never shows._

“I think he’s probably dead, Bobby.”

In the darkness, Bobby sighs and looks away. Dean is proud that his voice held steady, but he can still hear how damned weak he sounds. He can’t do this, it can’t be this way. They have more than enough problems to deal with without mourning for the guy that brought half of them down on their heads in the first place. He bows his head and thinks of family and all the things family should do for one another.

“He’s an angel of the lord,” Bobby says quietly. “And he’s a hard bastard too. If anyone could survive something like that it’d be him.”

Dean chuckles softly, and shakes his head. “Ain’t that the truth?”

Bobby’s voice is gruff as he replies. “Get some rest, we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

Nodding, Dean finishes up his beer. Bobby claps him on the shoulder, and turns to go back inside. “And cut your damn hair, boy.”

Despite himself, Dean laughs.

  
  


*

  
  


Regardless of what he might have implied to Bobby, Dean doesn’t sleep that night, and so he’s awake when the the lights of Bobby’s returning truck swing across the front of the cabin. He pauses the video he was half-watching, and tilts his head to one side to listen. He knows the sound of the truck, but he only relaxes when he hears both doors slam closed and his brother’s voice say something low and muffled. Finally he lets the tide of fatigue catch up with him. Shutting the laptop, he sets it aside and swings his legs over the edge of the bunk. There’s enough energy left in him to welcome his brother back, then he’s going to hit the sack ready to go to work tomorrow.

The cabin door swings open, letting in the night and bringing with it his brother. He looks tired and travel worn, even more so than usual. Dean gets up to greet him, and the movement catches the other man’s attention. Dean comes forward to take any bags, and the moment he meets Sam’s eyes he knows.

Sam stops short, Bobby crowding at his shoulder. The older man is wearing a pained expression on his face, and for Dean it simply confirms his suspicions. Sam looks drained, but resolute. His jaw is set, and Dean knows that look, has seen it a hundred times before. It has never, ever meant anything good for either of them.

“Dean.”  
  
“Sammy,” he replies warily. The look his brother is giving him makes him want to tear his hair out. It’s the look that says _I’ve done something you’re not going to like, and there’s no going back now._ There is only one damned thing in the current situation that Sam could have done that Dean knows he wouldn’t like. One big thing anyway.

“Tell me you haven’t,” he says.

Sam raises his chin defiantly.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Bobby mutters, his expression saying everything about how long the night is going to be.

  
  


*

  
  


The problem is, Dean can see Sam’s point. What his brother says makes sense with the same awful inevitability that they’ve lived their entire lives suffering beneath. It doesn’t stop him from shaking his head in denial, or refusing point blank to allow it to happen, and it certainly doesn’t stop the cold, clutching dread that makes his jaw tighten and his fists itch to punch something.

“Dean,” Sam says softly, his head resting against the fingers of one hand. This will be the fifth time he’s reiterated his point, and they’re now to the stage where they both simply sit at the table, tired and strung out, in the muted glow of one of the side lamps. Bobby sits between them, head down, watching them both from beneath the peak of his cap. “This spell only works if there’s a previous tie to the thing you’re summoning. It’s got to be a strong tie, the stronger the better. If that’s not there then the spell fails before it even gets off the ground.”

Dean doesn’t reply, staring grimly down at his hands where they hang between his knees. He gets the point Sam is making, he really does. But what Sam doesn’t understand is that he’s Dean’s baby brother. It’s Dean’s job to take on the shit that his brother shouldn’t have to. Sam’s done this once. There’s no excuse for him to ever have to take on something like this ever again.

“You never let Michael in. He doesn’t have the same link to you that Lucifer does to me. It’s- it’s a metaphysical thing. A magic thing. It’s just the way spells work best. I’m sorry.”

There’s silence for a long minute, and then Sam tries again. “I beat him once, Dean. I can do it again. And it won’t even be like that this time. I’m not inviting him in, I’m telling him he can only come here if he obeys me, and if he doesn’t then the spell fails. He has to go back, and neither he nor I can stop that from happening. If he tries to play us, then he screws himself over too. If he does anything, _anything_ that we don’t like we just send him back.”

“And then what?” Dean asks quietly.

Sam dips his head, swallows. “Then I guess we’ll find another way.”

In the distance a screech owl trills softly, but in the tense silence that hangs in the cabin even that is startlingly loud. Bobby is watching them both closely, his head still lowered, his expression unreadable. His folded arms and posture indicate that he’s not here unless they need him to be. Be that as the voice of calm, or the body that gets between them both should anything foolish occur.

Dean breathes out, long and slow. There is a pain behind his eyes that will not go away. “Tell me what the rules are,” he says.

Sam is slow to respond, not immediately realising that progress has been made. After a moment to process the request he blinks and straightens. “I-, she said to make no more than seven. Three is ideal, so I made three.”

Dean dips his head in acknowledgement, raises his eyebrows for his brother to continue.

Rolling up his sleeve a little, Sam shakes the heavy bracelet free and holds his wrist up to catch the light. “They’re etched into the links. I made them to cover as many situations as I could think of. Enough that he can’t wriggle out of anything, but general enough that they don’t accidentally make logic holes. So, uh, firstly - you will not harm humans. Secondly, you will obey me. And finally, you will protect me. I figure that if he can’t hurt humans then he can’t hurt any of us. If he has to obey me then he just has to do what I tell him, full stop. And finally he has to protect me, because then, if for whatever reason I can’t talk to him, he’s still got to protect me without being told to.”

Dean is thinking hard, searching for the loopholes like he knows Lucifer will be. “Like in that Will Smith film,” he says. “With the robots.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam smiles tiredly, willing to go along with the idea if only to help ease the tension. “Though I can’t see Lucifer doing anything to harm himself.” He rolls his eyes, then adds, “You know, the original third law?”

Dean just shakes his head and gives Sam an unimpressed look.

“Well. Let’s hope he doesn’t go all robot queen on us at the end,” Bobby grouses.

They both stare at him, Dean clearly torn between alarm and surprise, Sam merely adding one more thing to the very long list of rules he’s already come up with that Lucifer is going to obey or face the consequences.

  
  


*

  
  


A week passes. They leave Whitefish and head south through Missoula and Elk City, deep into the forests of Idaho, far away from prying eyes and the risk of collateral damage. The hunter network is quiet, the creature they’re tracking as dormant as a sleeping bear. Bobby gets them access to a remote log cabin, a favour from a friend of a friend, old and basic and without electricity. For all that it’s still big enough to accommodate them all - someone’s dream of a family retreat given up to a turn of bad fortune and subsequently absorbed into the eclectic mix of hunter resources.

They gather supplies; Bobby tunes up his pickup truck and packs a small portable generator into the back, ready for when they hit the wilderness. They pack food and books and ritual gear. Holy oil and chalk, incense and bottles of blood. They shouldn’t need any of it, but the years have taught them to be prepared. When they head out, closing up Rufus’ cabin behind them, they do so in convoy and it feels as though they’re heading out into battle. 

As the miles pass away beneath the wheels of the Impala the tension grows. The enormity of what they intend, the utter insanity of it, looms over their group like a hex. It is one thing to face down the Devil in order to save the world. Quite another to call on him voluntarily. Lucifer sits in the back seat of the Impala and kicks endlessly at the back of Sam’s chair. He smells of blood and smoke.

Dean drives; Sam stares out of the window and tries to think of nothing at all.

  
  


*

  
  


In the depths of the forest night falls early. Sam’s hands are stained with soil, sore from the effort of digging. The summoning sigil is cut into the bare earth around him, three inches deep. He stands, brushing his hands off on his jeans.

“Good to go?” Dean asks, with raised eyebrows.

Sam nods, and takes the bottle of oil from his brother’s hand. Together they move slowly around the sigil, filling each curve and line with fluid. It’s slow, careful work, lit only by the flaming bamboo torches placed at intervals around the outside. This is an old spell, and it feeds on fire. _There’ll be plenty of that where he’s coming from,_ Sam thinks to himself, then grits his teeth against the thought.

The tracing of the sigil complete, Sam stands back to evaluate their work. Bobby stands on his left, Dean to his right, and together the three of them stare at the symbol. The evening is cold, and the thin breeze that whips through the treetops feels edged with ice. There is nothing left to do now except that which they came here for.

Bobby reaches up and grasps Sam’s shoulder. “We’ll be close,” he says.

Sam nods, gives him a tense smile. The older man’s grip is strong and reassuring, and he finds himself unable to speak for the gratitude he feels. Bobby’s quiet support over the years has always been invaluable. With a glance between the brothers, Bobby retreats.

“All right,” Dean says quietly. He’s looking out across the clearing, nodding over something only he knows. Sam knows a delaying tactic when he sees one. But what do they even say at a time like this? What can you say? Sam nods too, and swallows.

In the end they don’t say anything. They clap one another on the shoulder, fingers tight, and then after a moment’s hesitation Dean joins Bobby at the edge of the clearing. They’re unarmed, because nothing they have is powerful enough to kill the Devil. The one person present who can tackle Satan is standing in the centre of the clearing, surrounded by magic and fire.

Alone, Sam closes his eyes, and breathes deep.

He can hear the wind high in the treetops, the far-off cry of an owl. He is surrounded by the snap and rush of the torches, their flames caught by the breeze. He can feel his heartbeat shaking in his chest. He cannot see Lucifer. With hands made numb by the evening chill, he grasps the bracelet that will be the binding of the spell, and speaks the words that will summon the Devil.

Sam has cast spells in the past, and he’s done it in worse conditions than this. He’s summoned before, and he’s banished before too. He understands the need for precise enunciation, and clarity of intent, because he knows the consequences of a loosely woven spell. So when he speaks the words he thinks of nothing but his own strength, of his need to contain the monster that he calls on.

 _These are my rules_ he speaks aloud, the Enochian harsh in his mouth, and the wrist that wears the binding bracelet held high to catch the firelight. _Come to me, and obey._

There is nothing. No answer, no sound or movement save the faint stirring of the wind in the treetops. His heart is beating fast in anticipation and fear, and he wonders if he’s mispronounced something, if he should recite the incantation again.

When the spell ignites, when the Devil answers, Sam knows it.

_I hear you, and I accept._

The voice may be in his mind, but so too it could be the crack of ancient glaciers, the thunderous roar of the oncoming avalanche. The oil in the summoning sigil catches fire in a burst of heat and sound, flames racing along the intricate web of lines to light up the symbol. The links of the summoning bracelet flare hot against Sam’s skin, and he feels a sudden, deep wrench somewhere at the very core of his being. It’s as though something has attached invisible ropes to his soul and is pulling hard on them. Sam has cast enough magic to know that this is the power cost, the sacrifice that drives the spell itself. He braces himself mentally against the enormous drag of power the magic takes, the deep draught of his soul’s energy that it wants to consume.

The flames rise and shift from gold to blue, and Sam thinks in alarm that blue is hotter, blue will burn him away if it touches him. But as the flames rise, the temperature does not, and as Sam concentrates on holding the form of the spell in his mind, bracing himself against the pull of it, the fire begins to swirl slowly upwards. It coils around his body, dipping into his energy and drawing it out to wrap up and around in a cone of power and light. It’s building, forming a focus of power, preparing for something. Sam can feel his breathing becoming laboured, exhilaration and fear making his breath short. Something is coming, something powerful and old. He feels it with every raised hair on his body.

He thinks of Lucifer - of Hell, and pain, and death. He remembers fire. With a snarl Sam clamps down hard on the draw of power, pulling back where it pulls on him, giving only on his terms.

The slow build of power reaches an apex, and suddenly the flames whip out from around him. They flow from the sigil, up and around his body, and then out into the clearing, fire racing across the dry ground and dancing over the trunks of the nearby trees. Suddenly, everything pauses, and then in a rush of sound and light the magic floods back inwards like a great beast drawing breath to roar. The temperature in the clearing plummets, and the air fills with tiny, glittering ice crystals. Sam can feel them forming all across his skin and around his mouth as he breathes out a shocked breath.

At the opposite side of the sigil to where he stands, a figure begins to coalesce from the gathered flames. Sam thinks: _This is it._ The bracelet around his wrist burns cold, and dread seizes him. The flames solidify and there is a terrible, stretched moment where the world around him is filled with layered wings, a hundred thousand of them, all stretching outwards from here to the furthest point of the Earth. Wrapped over and around them are chains, gleaming bright and silver in the light of the magic, all bound tight around the alien curve of muscle and bone at the centre of the summoning, and affixed immovably to the bracelet at his wrist. From somewhere far off, in a direction he never even knew existed, he thinks he hears the sound of some vast and terrible gate beginning to open.

Reality shifts as Sam’s all too human perceptions are suddenly and violently altered to accommodate a new understanding of the universe. And suddenly he sees the unbreakable strength of these bonds, sees how each and every one of them can overlap and coexist in a space that would never understand their existence in just the three planes. It’s magnificent, and awe-inspiring. He knows then that he will never again simply _understand_ in quite the same way as he does in this moment. All at once he sees the eyes, bright with colours he never knew existed, each one turned to look at him, a hundred of them at once, and he is transfixed beneath the weight of their regard. A sound, high and sweet and piercing, vibrates every part of his body, to the most hidden depths of his soul.

This then is an archangel in his truest form, and he is glorious.

And then as suddenly as it drew together, the gathered power dissipates in a wave of energy that rolls outwards into the surrounding forest, taking the light with it. In a vast thundercrack of sound, the clearing is plunged into darkness.

Sam stands, shaken and shaking, in the summoning sigil, and it takes him a long moment to realise that there remains a low burn of light from where the lines of power are still alight, muted now and back to the mundane golden glow of natural fire. He feels as though something has reached into his being, body and soul, and withdrawn every last ounce of his energy. With a mighty effort of will, he overcomes the swaying sensation in his head, and stares into the gloom.

There is a figure standing at the opposite side of the summoning sigil, and in the muted glow of the flames, it is staring at him. Sam thinks, _oh god oh god it’s him_. Horror and fear rise up in him, strangling him with memories of torn skin, of torture, and thick black chains that dig into flesh and wrap around like razor-edged vises. He swallows hard, all the breath gone out of him, and meets the figure’s eyes.

The Devil wears Nick’s body, and in Nick’s voice he says, so softly, _“Sam.”_

That one word is spoken with such reverent joy, such relief, that for a moment Sam is unable to process what he hears. He looks into the Devil’s eyes and Lucifer graces him with a smile of genuine warmth, and utter sincerity. Where Sam searches for malice, there is none.

He does not understand.

_A trick. A vicious play on his emotions that will all too soon turn to cruelty._

Sam takes a stumbling step backwards and grabs with his right hand for the binding bracelet. Fear is closing up his throat, and he is filled with a deep paranoia that the binding will not hold, that he will have loosed the Devil onto the world - and himself.

Lucifer cocks his head slowly to the side, like a curious bird, and a hint of concern colours his features. He makes as though to speak, and Sam tries to cut him off, tries to silence him, but the weaving of the spell has taken so much out of him that he can feel himself losing his grip on consciousness. The dark clearing is darkening further as blackness creeps in around the edge of his vision, and his body refuses to answer his ever more desperate commands.

The last thing he knows before the darkness takes him is Dean’s voice crying out in wordless fear, and Lucifer reaching for him, Sam’s name on his lips. Even in the darkness, the blue of the Devil’s eyes is more intense than any summer sky. 


	4. Part 2 - Lucifer Returned 4. The Devil in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer returned, the Devil in the dark, and the man who called him forth.

**Part 2 - Lucifer Returned**

Dean scrambles to his feet, his ears ringing. Bobby is a groaning mass in the darkness behind him, and he puts a hand back to grasp for him. The older man’s fingers find his and push him away, growling for him to go.

Bits of plant matter, leaves and dirt and twigs, all fall from Dean’s body in a shower as he lurches to his feet. His exposed skin feels tight and sore as though he’s been standing in a gale force wind all night, and his body thrums with the unpleasant aftermath of magical energy. He hopes to god that being washed in summoning fire hasn’t left him with any nasty surprises. The important thing though is finding out if the spell has worked, because if it has then the Devil is here and Sam is alone with him.

He curses the darkness, staggering forwards and drawing his gun. It won’t be enough to hurt an archangel, he knows that, but sometimes Lucifer is arrogant enough to waste time mocking distractions. Any little will help.

Almost turning his ankle on something, he keeps his feet only barely. After the blazing climax of the spell his eyes are still struggling, but now he can see the dull glow of the magical symbol, still burning softly. Two shadowed figures stand amidst its flickering lines and Dean’s heart lurches. Sam’s form is to the right, where he left him. He’s upright, but moving away, putting distance between himself and the man standing opposite. Dean knows that figure all too well.

He tries to shout, but his throat is thick with dirt and his head is woozy. It comes out as a gasp and he coughs harshly. In the middle of the clearing, Sam sways on his feet and begins to fall. Lucifer reacts like lightning - quick as a snake he’s there to catch Sam before his knees have even hit the ground. Dean yells in wordless fury, and staggers towards the pair of them. He’s slow and off-balance, and when Lucifer looks up to regard him Dean snarls, “Get away from him!”

Lucifer glances in his direction, and his lips thin in distaste. With a dismissive shake of his head, he wraps Sam securely in his arms and then, in a whip-crack beat of unseen wings, both of them vanish. The flames of the summoning sigil flicker once and abruptly die, leaving Dean alone in the clearing with Bobby still slumped painfully behind him, and nothing but the scent of smoke and oil remaining.

  
  


*

  
  


There are cool fingers on his forehead, and carding softly through his hair. Someone has their arm wrapped loosely around his stomach, and from the feel of it he’s leaning against their chest. A man’s chest.

“Dean?” Sam asks drowsily. It has been years since Dean last touched Sam like this. Something must be very wrong. Perhaps he is dying.

“Sam.”

The voice is entirely wrong, and Sam goes from sleepy to wide awake in a split-second. Where he is, or at least, where he was and what he was doing comes rushing back in an avalanche of adrenaline and shock. The Devil is here. Lucifer has him in his arms. With a sharp intake of breath he pushes himself out of the other man’s embrace, struggling to turn and get to his feet. Lucifer lets him go, but reaches for him when Sam stumbles, grabbing his arm to steady him as Sam almost ends up on his ass.

“Sam?”

He twists around, shaking off the grip on his arm and scrambling away. “Get away from me!”

Halfway through the motion of reaching for him, Lucifer stops cold. His body stiffens, and his features slacken in surprise. The pause is enough to give Sam time to get to his feet. He puts his back to a nearby tree and grabs for the binding bracelet on his wrist. Its links are cool and strong between his fingers and he grips them tight enough to make the metal pinch painfully against the bones in his wrist.

“Get back,” he says breathlessly, staring wide-eyed at the Devil.

Lucifer, still kneeling on the forest floor, looks up at him with an expression of mingled surprise and concern that is rapidly turning to anger. Sam knows only too well the signs that indicate a souring of the archangel’s mood. Lucifer can be whimsical and patient, but he’s also cruel, and an archangel, and he does not deal well with being denied anything.

“Get. _Back.”_

Still blinking, Lucifer obeys. In the darkness of the forest at night, Sam can only pick him out by the moonlight that falls across his shoulders and highlights the sharp edges of his features. In the darkness his eyes still gleam as he turns his head. An angry angel’s eyes pick up the light even in the deepest of darkness Sam knows.

“Sam,” Lucifer says softly, rising slowly to his feet and backing away. He raises his hands as he does so, as though to calm a snarling dog. “What’s going on?”

“Be quiet,” Sam snaps. He looks around as best he can, his eyes unable to pierce the gloom. Clearly they’re still in a forest, but the trees and underbrush here are too thick to be the clearing where they set up the ritual. Lucifer has moved them. Sam turns his attention back to him, acutely aware that he has in front of him the most dangerous creature in all of Creation. Currently the archangel appears to be obeying the influence of the binding bracelet, but Sam doesn’t loosen his grip on it.

“Where are we?” he asks sharply, watching carefully for any indication that the archangel is going to rush him.

Lucifer’s eyes never leave his and he tilts his head slightly to the side. The expected anger hasn’t fully manifested, and his expression has turned wary, concerned. “We’re three miles south of your summoning ritual,” he replies, then pauses clearly waiting for Sam to react.

Sam nods. “Why did you move us?”

“Your brother appeared to be upset,” Lucifer replies with the slightest of shrugs, and even now his tone indicates quite what he thinks of Dean and his reactions. “I wanted to make sure that he didn’t cause us any problems. Dean has a history of rushing in.”

All very reasonable, all very logical. Sam doesn’t trust him for a second. “I specifically said in the ritual that you aren’t to hurt people.”

Lucifer nods slowly, tilting his head the other way. “And I didn’t, Sam. I didn’t hurt Dean, and I’m not going to hurt you.” He narrows his eyes a little, in what appears to be concern. “You know that, don’t you, Sam? I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t need any rules or magic for that to be the-”

“Shut up.”

And he does. The Devil immediately falls silent, and the night is filled with nothing but Sam’s still laboured breathing. He doesn’t know how much time has passed since he blacked out, but he can still feel the dizziness and drain left over from the summoning. His limbs feel weak as though he’s been sick, and the night chill is biting through the layers of his clothing. He’s not normally susceptible to the cold, but out here in the dark he can feel himself shivering.

“How long was I out?”

“Five, six minutes,” Lucifer answers softly. His gaze still hasn’t left Sam, as though he fears that if he breaks the line of sight then Sam will simply turn and run. Slowly, he lowers himself into a crouching position, and Sam shifts warily.

“What are you doing?”

“Resting my legs,” Lucifer replies calmly.

Sam blinks. He suspects a trick but cannot see what it is. Archangels, generally speaking, don’t need to rest their legs. He can feel Lucifer’s eyes on him, even if he can’t really make out the rest of his expression. The Devil has gone still and silent, and Sam knows him well enough to realise that he’s done so because he’s unsure of what’s going on. He has Lucifer on the back foot, and his control over him is holding. Obviously Lucifer’s plan is to hold off and wait until he can test Sam’s control more fully.

“Take us back to the clearing,” Sam says. If nothing else Dean will be going out of his mind by now.

In the darkness Lucifer sighs softly and shifts minutely. “Perhaps we could wait a moment more?” he says carefully.

“ _Now_ ,” Sam stresses. Whatever game Lucifer is playing he will have none of it.

The archangel wipes his fingertips across his mouth and then nods once. Rising slowly to his feet, he cautiously holds out a hand to Sam. “May I?”

“No,” Sam snaps. “Gabriel could do it without. So can you.”

There is a pregnant pause in which he hears Lucifer breathe out once - a small, sharp huff of breath that could be anger or surprise. The last thing he wants is Lucifer touching him though. He’s had more than enough of the Devil’s hands on his body.

“ _Lucifer_ ,” he presses.

“Yes, Sam,” the archangel replies, and his voice sounds breathy, as though in astonishment. “A moment, if you would. Allow me to get my bearings.”

A second later, Lucifer moves his hand and the world warps around them in the all too familiar rush and twist of angelic flight.

  
  


*

  
  


The first thing that occurs to Sam as they rematerialise is that the clearing is bigger. Much bigger. In the distance he can see torch beams moving - battery powered ones. The explosive final rush of ritual energy had blown out the brands they’d placed at strategic intervals, but it appears that the torches weren’t the only thing that was knocked flat. Sam can’t see much in the gloom, but he can hear Dean calling for him. A step forward proves to be a mistake as he almost twists his ankle on the unstable ground. He digs in his pocket and pulls out his small torch, shining it down at the earth.

The area is littered with what looks like wood chip. Bark, leaves and the pale yellow of freshly cut wood are spread out in all directions. “The trees,” he says in momentary confusion.

Lucifer, a shadow at his side, kicks at something he can’t see. “Magical discharge,” he says. “It was the trees or your brother and the old man.”

For a moment Sam is immensely glad that he can hear Dean shouting, otherwise he might not quite have believed Lucifer’s claim.

“Dean!” he calls, flicking his torch beam out towards the centre of the clearing to catch his brother’s eye.

“Must we?” Lucifer breathes, and Sam is certain he hears him wince.

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Follow me, and behave.”

In the distance Dean has caught sight of their light and Sam can hear him shouting. He calls back, trying to keep anything that might resemble agitation from his voice. It’s hard though. No matter how many times he was reassured or reassured others that the nature of this spell will protect them from Lucifer’s wrath, he remains acutely aware of the fallen archangel at his back. He takes a step to the side, trying to keep from having to turn his back on him, even in the darkness.

The way forwards is littered with lumps and chips of wood, and Sam is aghast at the sheer destructive force that must have been released. “Dean,” he says, looking his brother over closely as he draws near. Dean is limping slightly, and his attention is split between checking Sam over and keeping his torch on the face of the monster he’s bringing with him.

“Sammy, you okay?” Dean reaches out and grabs his upper arm, hard enough that it almost pulls Sam off-balance. His brother throws him a look of concern and his grip tightens. His torch beam remains on Lucifer though, and in the sharp light the Devil blinks lazily at him. “Is he?”

“I’m fine, I’m good. He’s...under control. Yeah, it’s working.”

They both turn to regard Lucifer, Sam realising only after Dean shifts that he’s leaning more of his weight than he intended on his brother. He tries to compensate, but Dean’s grip is relentless.

“Hello, asshole,” Dean says, his voice gone cold and soft with restrained fury.

Lucifer tilts his head and slowly folds his arms. The very slightest of smirks pulls at the corner of his mouth and his reply is laced with the utmost cordiality. “Hello, Dean.”

Sam feels Dean tensing at his side, muscles going tight in anger. “I’ve got a whole barrel full of holy oil with your name written on it-”

“Dean, where’s Bobby?” Sam interrupts. His head is starting to pound and as much as he despises the creature standing before them he can’t let the two of them get into a catfight that will do nothing but escalate.

Dean pauses to get a grip on his anger, but his glare and his torch beam don’t deviate from the Devil’s face. “Back at the truck. He’s all right. What-” He stops and then pulls on Sam’s arm, drawing him back and away from Lucifer. The archangel makes to follow, but Sam holds up his hand and quite firmly tells him to stay. Lucifer’s jaw shifts and his expression, although outwardly mild, is quite clearly a cover for something far darker going on beneath the surface. Sam thinks it’s anger, but there’s something else there too, some other emotion that the archangel seems to be trying to communicate to him by way of his eyes alone. Sam ignores it and lets Dean draw him away some distance.

“What the hell happened back there? Where did you two go?” Dean whispers to him. “Are you okay? You look like shit.”

“Thanks, I feel like shit. That spell just...took it out of me.” He shakes his head, glances at Lucifer then turns his face away so that he can speak directly into Dean’s ear. Most likely the archangel will still be able to hear him, but it’s a comfort to try. “He zapped us a few miles away when you came over. I think he freaked out when he saw you coming. Tried to put some distance between us to work out what’s going on.”

“You told him anything yet?” Dean murmurs.

Sam shakes his head. “I wanted to make sure he’d bring me back first.”

Dean makes a noise of acknowledgement, “I’m surprised he didn’t take you further. You’re sure he’s on the leash?”  
  
“As far as I can tell he is. He...he really stopped when I told him to.” At Dean’s look he hastens to add, “He moved away from me. Didn’t try to follow. Stopped talking when I told him to. And-, well, he brought us back here when I ordered him to.”

Dean nods slowly and Sam turns to look back at the archangel. He’s stood watching them with folded arms, but he hasn’t moved. He seems strangely stiff, as though uncomfortable in his own body. Sam tilts his head and squints at him. “He look off to you?” he asks.

Dean pauses then shrugs. “It’s rough coming back from Hell. I guess even for bastards like him.”

Sam raises his eyebrows in agreement and then looks back over his shoulder. “We should get out of here. A magical discharge like this is going to bring god knows what out here to investigate.”

“Fine by me,” Dean says. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, Dean. I’m fine. Just-, _tired_ , that’s all.”

“All right.” Dean raises his voice and calls out to Lucifer. “You, with us. Now.”

His reply is a very slow raising of one eyebrow from the archangel. Lucifer’s expression goes from watchful to amused disbelief, and his lips part in the barest hint of a smile. He clearly has no intention whatsoever of obeying anything Dean says to him. The expression is gone the moment Sam’s voice cracks out, “Do what he says.”

In the torchlight Lucifer visibly shivers, and in the torch beam there are no shadows to hide the clenching of his jaw. Both Sam and Dean cannot help their amazement as the Devil takes a step forward, and then another, walking slowly towards them.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathes, for Sam’s hearing only.

Sam straightens and pulls away from Dean’s grasp. “Walk beside us,” he says, and Lucifer looks at him, long and hard. Again, there’s something in his eyes that Sam can’t quite understand, but it looks a little like betrayal. It does not for a single moment make sense, and without being able to explain why he finds himself softening his tone somewhat. “We’re going back to our base. You’re to come with us and do as I ask you to. Do not speak to Bobby unless I tell you to.”

Dean glances at Sam in surprise, but then nods. The two of them are not the only people to have a bad history with the Devil.

“Sam,” Lucifer breathes, and both brothers stiffen. For a long moment it seems like he’ll say more, but then his expression smoothes out, and he nods. The arrogance and pride slide back across his features, and he shrugs once for them to lead on. Warily, they do so.

Bobby is standing behind the cover of the truck when they reach the edge of the clearing. He has a shotgun in his hands and a baleful expression on his face. Lucifer looks at him with utter disinterest, his eyes sliding over him and then away, as though he’s nothing but a particularly dull inanimate object. Sam can see that the older man’s knuckles are white where he’s gripping the shotgun. “Bobby, it worked,” he says.

“You all right, boy?” Bobby asks evenly, but his eyes never leave Lucifer.

“Fine, just-, yeah fine.”

“Bobby, we need to get out of here,” Dean interrupts. “Back to base now before someone turns up to take a look at what’s gone down.”

There’s a long pause, then Bobby nods slowly. “He’s riding in the back,” he says, pointing the barrel of the shotgun in Lucifer’s direction. Dean snorts in agreement and nods. The archangel gives them both an entirely unimpressed look. Riding in any vehicle is patently below him, let alone the back of Bobby’s beat-up old pickup truck.

“Fine,” Sam says, not in the least enamoured of having the archangel wedged upfront with the three of them. He can feel the blackness returning, picking at the edges of his vision and making his legs feel as though they’re about to give out. “Get in.”

Lucifer takes a second to respond, then he glances sideways at Sam with the slightest of frowns on his features, as though he’d expected something else. Sam is feeling too shaky to respond with much of anything except impatience, and with an unwelcome start he realises he’s started to list to one side. Dean is there immediately, his hand back around Sam’s upper arm, subtly holding him up. He glares hatred at Lucifer and snarls, “He said get in the truck.”

“Sam?” Lucifer asks softly, trying to catch his eye. No matter how fast Dean was, the archangel had caught his momentary loss of balance.

“Get in the truck and stay there till I tell you otherwise,” Sam snaps. He feels as though he’s going to faint, or throw up, or maybe even both.

Moving stiffly, his expression gone hard with something unreadable, Lucifer moves to haul himself in over the side..

“The back comes down, y’idjit,” Bobby snaps at him.

For a moment, no-one moves. Then with an inclination of his head in Bobby’s direction, Lucifer slowly moves to the back of the truck, finds the latch, and then gets in. He seats himself against the side, and remains there, his eyes on Sam. Bobby’s shotgun follows him the entire time.

Cautiously, the three of them load themselves into the front of the truck, Bobby taking the driver’s seat, gun tucked by his leg, and Sam allowing himself to be manhandled into the centre of the front bench. Dean puts his back against the side door so he can keep one eye on Lucifer and the other on Sam. “You doing okay?” he asks, and when Sam nods tiredly, he looks to Bobby. “Get us the hell out of here.”

By the time they make it off the forest trail and back onto the road, Sam is already asleep. Bobby drives with one hand on his shotgun, watching Lucifer through the rearview mirror. The Devil, for his part, rests his back against the side of the truck and turns his face to the night sky, his eyes closed and his features devoid of any expression at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's enough AO3 editing for me, for now. More tomorrow if time allows. I'm hoping to get a chapter posted every couple of days.
> 
> I'm @ophanir on tumblr if you think of something that needs tagging etc.


	5. Job Description

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to tell the Devil why he’s back.

“He was just... I don’t know what the hell. He didn’t, he wasn’t... _angry_. I was, I don’t know, expecting anger maybe.”

Sam shakes his head and rests his forehead against his palms, elbows set against the tabletop. He can still feel the sensation of Lucifer’s fingers carding gently through his hair before he came round. The memory of it makes him shudder.

“Sam…?” Dean’s voice is deep with concern and he leans forward in his chair, dipping his head to try and see into his brother’s eyes.

“Yeah, it’s nothing. I’m just worn out. I really need to sleep, I’m sorry.”

The ride back to their secluded cabin had taken three hours. Sam had slept for the entire journey, only half-waking every so often when they hit a long turn in the road. He remembers none of it though, the time between the clearing and Dean shaking him awake again gone like so much smoke.

“All right, well. If he’s going to stay in the back room...”

Sam nods as Dean trails off. He can feel his brother’s tension even without looking at him. Of course they had known that they’d have to keep Lucifer in the cabin with them, and had prepared one of the small back rooms just for that purpose. However now that he’s actually here the shadows suddenly feel deeper and heavier, the menace of his presence like a weight pressing down on their backs. The wooden walls and simple latches are laughable protection against the will of an ancient celestial being, and yet Lucifer has once again submitted.

Sam isn’t entirely sure what’s going on with the archangel. There’s more to his acquiescence than simply obeying the spell cast on him. Even muddled by exhaustion and with nerves drawn tight and thrumming with anxiety Sam can see that there’s something a little _off_ about Lucifer. He moves carefully and slowly, his steps very nearly cautious, and Sam thinks that there’s something wrong with him inside. Something that pains him or exhausts him, much as Sam himself feels like he’s been punched through a wall repeatedly. His every muscle aches. Perhaps the Devil feels the same way.

“He’ll stay there. I told him I’d come get him later. I think-” Sam shakes his head, thumbs his eyes and sighs. “I think he’s going to sleep it off.”

“Sleep what off?” Bobby asks gruffly.

“The ritual.”

Bobby and Dean exchange glances, and Sam shrugs up at them. They know as much as he does about all this. “Guys, I’m sorry,” he says. “But I really…”

“Fine, fine,” Dean says, pushing himself to his feet. “You get some rest. We’ll keep an eye out.”

Perhaps, in ordinary circumstances, Sam might have protested. As it is he can feel the muscles in his legs trembling, as though he somehow ran the last ninety miles back to the cabin, and any protest he might have made is pushed aside by the overwhelming need to sleep. Lurking Devil in the back room or not, his body will no longer obey his commands. Rising to his feet, he grabs one of the old oil lamps and takes it through with him into his room. The log cabin may have no reliable power of its own yet, and only the very basic plumbing system, but it’s nothing if not spacious.

Bobby and Dean watch him retreat to the room he’s claimed as his own, and then stand in silence in the flickering light of the remaining two oil lamps. Dean rubs a tired palm across his face and then looks at Bobby. The older man’s mouth is turned down in an unhappy frown, and he shakes his head minutely. “I’ve done what I can with the sigils,” he says, and Dean nods.

“All right. I’m going to take first watch,” Dean replies. “Get some sleep, I don’t want this bastard catching us with our pants down.”

Bobby nods, and hooks a hand round the edge of the curtains, peering out into the darkness. The night is utterly black, the sky through the trees entirely obscured by cloud. The air is heavy and thick, and he shrugs his shoulders uncomfortably. “Storm’s coming,” he mutters.

Dean frowns and nods to the other man as Bobby climbs slowly up to the floor above, the wooden steps creaking under his weight. Then he pulls out the angel blade he’s kept with him - for all the good it will do - and settles himself in a chair facing the door to the back room where the Devil is sleeping.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s the scent of fried eggs that wakes him. Afterwards, he’s almost certain the greasy smell of them worked their way into his dreams, but since fried egg is far higher up the chain in terms of pleasant than any dream he’s had for the last few years, Sam isn’t entirely ready to complain. Besides which, his second thought upon waking is that he is absolutely ravenous.

“Rise and shine,” Dean says, and waves the plate under his nose again.

Sam scrambles to push himself upright in the bed, realising suddenly that apparently he put himself to bed fully clothed last night, save for his boots, and accepts the plate from his brother. “What time is it?” he asks blearily.

“Two in the afternoon,” Dean replies. “I’d have let you sleep but he’s up and around already.”

By 'he' Sam realises, Dean means Lucifer. Suddenly his appetite isn’t quite so strong and he glances down at the plate of eggs and toast, thinking that he should get up and check on the archangel immediately.

Dean sees the look, and shakes his head. “No. Eat. We’ve kept him in the back room. We haven’t gone in, but you can hear him walking around. He’ll keep for another five minutes.”

In the end the news fails to put much of a dent in Sam’s appetite, and he clears the plate in minutes, making even Dean raise an eyebrow at his enthusiasm. Throwing on a new shirt, he follows his brother out into the main room and from there toward the door that leads to the utility room and small box room on the back of the property. He touches his fingertips to Bobby’s shoulder as he passes him, then glances back at the both of them. “It’s okay, guys,” he says, when he sees their tense forms, shotgun and angel blade in hands. “I’ll take it from here.”

They do not look convinced. In truth, Sam is not sure himself, and when Dean steps up next to him, Sam doesn’t tell him to back off. His heart is racing with remembered fear, and he can feel the old panic rising up inside him. The shock of the inevitable defeat; the terrible moment when all illusions of resistance are stripped away and death stands before a person in all its cold, unforgiving horror - it once more lies behind that door. But Sam Winchester is an old friend of Death now, and once, not so long ago, he invited the Devil in and brought him low. He is not the boy he used to be.

For a moment, Sam pauses to listen at the door of the small room, but he can hear no movement from within. Dean glances sideways at him questioningly, and Sam shrugs. He raises his hand to knock and then stops, mentally chiding himself. Instead he reaches for the door handle and slowly pushes it open.

Lucifer is standing with his back to the room’s small window, and immediately his eyes find Sam’s. Sam stops short, Dean crowding at his shoulder.

The room is mostly unfinished and bare save for a bed and a small bedside cabinet. The dust and scuffing on the floor indicate that it’s been used for storage in the past, but now it’s painted up with symbols of binding on all the walls. Symbols adopted and adapted to keep an angel _in,_ not out. Sam has no idea how effective they will be on an archangel; prior experience with Lucifer’s kind tells him not very. But still, what else can they do? Fleetingly, he wishes Castiel were here to lend his expertise. The angel had always been particularly good at wards and bindings.

Lucifer looks tired. That’s the first thing that Sam notices. It’s not anything so obvious, so human, as bags under the eyes or a grey cast to his skin, but it’s there in the way he holds himself taut. It’s in the watchfulness of his gaze, and a hundred other subtleties that Sam can read but would find himself stymied if ever asked to describe.

“Lucifer,” he says, and the Devil breathes out long and slow, as though releasing a tension he had not intended to be holding in.

“Sam?” he asks cautiously, and despite Dean’s hovering presence in the doorway, the archangel’s eyes never once leave Sam’s.

What Sam wants to say is _”Why do you look like crap?”_ but this is not the time or the place for mercy. The Devil is here to serve them, not to be nannied by them. Even so though he finds himself wondering what it is that’s caused the fatigue he can sense in the other being. He shouldn’t feel like this. Sam reaches for the anger he’s used for so long, and comes up empty handed.

“Are you...okay?” he asks, and feels Dean shift at his shoulder.

Lucifer’s gaze flicks between them, and then back to Sam. It’s obvious to the younger Winchester that he doesn’t want to talk in front of Dean. _Tough,_ he thinks. _We call the shots here._

“I am somewhat recovered,” Lucifer says carefully. His eyes are a startling shade of blue in the dim light. That strange angelic otherness of the colour is something Sam finds himself unexpectedly welcoming, as though by seeing it now it’s suddenly revealed to him how much he has missed it. It’s a brightness that cuts through the gloom like nothing human or earthly can, and for a second he pauses just to consider how strange it is that something so beautiful can be so utterly, remorselessly deadly.

“You’re here to do a job.”

Dean’s voice breaks the silence, and its gruff tone tells Sam that he’s hesitated too long for it to be normal. He straightens up, pushing aside his thoughts, and works to get a grip on himself. Looking the Devil up and down is to remember fully the tortures he has experienced at this creature’s hands. For months now the Devil has been in his dreams, and perched at his shoulder in his waking hours. His childishness and cruelty have driven Sam to the brink of insanity, and the one thing that has brought him back from the edge has been his brother. Nothing will now convince him to let it come between himself and the man who has grounded him back in this reality.

Even so, the Devil in the flesh is something quite other to the viciously malicious demon that has haunted him for the past few months. The contrast is subtle and yet striking at the same time. Gone is the petulant wickedness and petty cruelty of the Devil that burned a planeful of people alive around him just to see him squirm, and in its place is this cool, watchful creature. For the briefest of moments Sam wonders if Dean never did save him from the brink, if he did in fact go completely insane months ago.

Lucifer straightens up and squares his shoulders slowly. He is still watching Sam, as though he hasn’t even heard Dean’s words. “Sam, what’s going on here?” he asks, his voice slow and careful. Sam is getting tired of that cautious tone, tired of being treated as fragile. He is not weak, and the creature before him has to know that.

“You’re here to fight something for us,” he says.

“Whatever you want, Sam,” Lucifer replies softly, and it makes Sam’s breath catch. This quiet, certain sincerity is not at all what he’d been expecting and he is entirely silenced by it. At a loss, he struggles to find the correct starting point for his explanation.

His brother is faster. “Great. You’re here to kill a monster that crawled out of Purgatory about a year ago. It’s been killing kids and apparently your kind are the only ones that can gank it. So here you are, and here we are. Now get to it.”

“Dean-”

Sam’s tone is sharper than he’d intended for it to be, and both his brother and the archangel tense as Sam’s voice cuts across the quiet. He has no idea where the sudden irritation with Dean has come from, and he battles to fight it down. They should strive to present a united front to Lucifer, but something about this whole situation is making Sam feel off. Everything is going too smoothly. Lucifer isn’t reacting how he should be - he should be furious and darkly, dangerously polite, waiting for a chance to trip them up and push them aside to gain his freedom. Lucifer is ancient and ruthless and terrifyingly intelligent, and he shouldn’t be standing quietly in the back room of this dusty log cabin looking at Sam Winchester as though he’s found salvation and wants to get down on his knees to it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam whispers.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice is confused. “Whoa there, buddy. Back off!”

Lucifer has stepped forward, and Dean moves to put himself in front of his brother, angel blade raised.

“Get out of my way,” the archangel says coldly, and the temperature in the room drops sharply.

“You back the hell off right-”

“Stop it! Both of you, just stop!”

Lucifer freezes, but Dean doesn’t move, he stands in front of his little brother, hunched and ready to fight. Sam slowly puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Dean. It’s all right. He can’t do anything. He’s not allowed.” Sam looks Lucifer directly in the eye as he says this and so he sees the strange emotion flicker across the archangel’s features. He cannot place it, but the shape of it is not quite right for anger. Leaning his not insignificant weight against Dean’s shoulder, Sam gently but firmly pushes his brother to one side so that he can stand next to him.

“You’re different,” he says to the archangel.

Lucifer breathes in deeply, leaning back as he does so, and some of the immediate tension goes out of Dean. “I came because you called me, Sam,” he says. “I came because I felt your need.”

Sam swallows. He remembers the summoning ritual. He remembers the power of the spell - the swirl and crash of energy, and the blinding beauty of the archangel emergent. He remembers how it felt when this ancient, magnificent creature heard his call and answered. Despite himself, he wants to thank him. It’s beyond some ingrained sense of politeness, beyond any idea of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s something basic and primal responding to a creature far greater in scope than a mortal being could ever imagine itself to be.

Lucifer closes his eyes briefly, as though gathering himself. When he opens them again some of his intensity has faded. “I don’t understand what is happening here, Sam. Explain it to me.”

Nodding slowly, Sam replies. “It’s like Dean said. There’s a monster come out of Purgatory, something old that apparently existed before everything else did. It’s...it’s killing people. Turning them into some kind of dust. We’ve been told it’s some sort of extra-dimensional creature, something not native to our reality, and that-, that only an archangel can kill it.”

Lucifer licks his lips, and closes his eyes again as he listens. He appears to be centering himself somehow, as though this entire situation is far too ridiculous to comprehend and the one way to deal with it is to break it down into small pieces. “Who told you these things?”

Sam and Dean exchange glances. “Crowley,” they say as one, and the archangel hums a soft, derisive note.

“And a summoner,” Sam adds, when it becomes clear what Lucifer thinks of their source. “The one that taught me the summoning spell. She confirmed what Crowley said.”

Lucifer eyes him strangely, and then looks away, his gaze wandering over the wooden walls and across the sigils daubed onto their logs. “Did she give you a name for this creature?”

Sam shakes his head. “Only that it’s something from outside reality, and that it’s dangerous. She said they couldn’t stop it.”

“No,” Lucifer confirms quietly. “If the woman who taught you your ritual cannot weave one to control this creature then it is truly outside the realm of mortal capacity to restrain.”

“Do you know what it is?” Dean asks.

Lucifer does not reply. Instead he turns his attention back to Sam and regards him closely. “Sam, if you are under any influence,” he says slowly, “Any type of coercion at all…”

Sam blinks at him. “What?”

“You have only to say, and I will _break_ them.”

The archangel’s expression is deadly serious, his gaze intent. There is something in his eyes that might be concealed rage, but not, Sam thinks, directed at him. “What are you talking about?”

Lucifer takes a breath, seems to consider carefully his next words. He looks from Sam to Dean and then back again. “Your ritual binds very tightly,” he replies evenly. “Its chains are very strong.”

“I wanted them that way,” Sam says.

Dean snorts in disdainful amusement. “You think we were gonna let you loose on this world again to do whatever you want? Not a chance, buddy.” 

Lucifer’s expressions betrays his surprise, and once again Sam feels like he’s missing something here. Some vital point that will cause everything to make sense if he just works out what it is. “Sam, I…”

“Are you kidding me?” Sam asks, disbelieving laughter making his words sound breathy. “You think after what you did I’m ever giving you a single _ounce_ of freedom ever again?”

Lucifer straightens, drawing back a little. His expression indicates that this is not the response he’d been anticipating. “Sam-”  
  
“Don’t _'Sam'_ me! After what you tried to do, after what you did to me, what you put me through down there-” Sam breaks off, his voice catching on the words. He’s never told Dean the full extent of the things Lucifer did to him in the Cage. You don’t talk about things like that, you simply cannot. Not him, anyway. It’s something he’s kept to himself and willed his brother to keep out of. Dean knows what Hell’s like, he’s been there. He knows how cruel angels can be, beyond the scope of any demon. “How dare you even fucking _try_ to talk to me like- no! Get _back!"_

Lucifer has taken a step forward, raising his hand to reach for Sam, but now he jerks backwards with a low grunt, as if physically pained by the command, and Sam cannot find a single thread of mercy in himself to care. “You stay back from me! I don’t want you touching me, do you understand?”

He’s breathing heavily, rage and frustration and shame for how hard he’d been broken by this bastard all burning through him like a storm out of control. Lucifer has his teeth clenched, his body stiff as he backs away, almost to the wall. Dean has his hand flat on Sam’s chest, looking with concern at his brother and wariness at the cringing archangel. “Sam, okay, man. Just take a step back a moment. You can beat the shit out of him later, and believe me I’m up for that. Sam. _Sam_. Sammy, come on.”

It takes long minutes for Sam to get himself back under control, and all the while Lucifer stands taut with his back to the wall, his jaw clenched and the darkest of looks in his eyes. Dean keeps one hand on Sam’s chest, the angel blade in the other, watching his brother come back from the fury. “All right?” he asks eventually, and after a moment Sam nods.

“All right,” Dean says, and turns his full attention on Lucifer. “Now you listen to me, you son of a bitch. We didn’t bust you out of the Cage because we felt sorry for you. You’re here to do a job for us, and that’s it. Now I don’t give a rat’s ass if that hurts your little feelings, you are here to kill this creature for us and then you’re going straight back where you belong. From here on out I don’t want to hear a word out of you that’s not to do with killing this thing, Capisce?"

There is silence. Sam wets his lips and stares at the floor, keeping an iron grip on his rage. Dean is a cold, immovable figure beside him. Even through the fury trembling his own limbs he can feel the protective outrage radiating from him brother. But there is nothing here that Dean can protect him from, no matter how he might want to try.

“For all that went before, in all our time in the Cage, I never once harmed you, Sam,” the Devil’s voice is low and grating. “I would not harm you. You must remember that, you must believe it. You are mine to protect-”

“Did you not hear-”

Lucifer cuts Dean off, speaking over him, and for the first time open anger colours his voice. “You should know only too well, Dean Winchester, how Hell twists the mind, how it pollutes everything it touches. The Cage is much the same, but it was built to contain _me_. Imagine, if you’re able, the forces it can exert upon a human soul that dwelt within it. The _damage_ it can do.”

“Are you trying to excuse yourself?” Sam asks, aghast.

“No,” Lucifer replies immediately. “No, Sam. I am who and what I am. But the Cage warps the reality of those within; it’s all part of the punishment.” His lips lift in a wry smile, there and gone almost before it forms. “I do not know what you remember from your time imprisoned there, but, Sam, I beg you to believe me, I would never hurt you. While you were with me in the Cage, I allowed no harm to come to you-”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I...” Lucifer's pause is long, as though he still cannot comprehend Sam's reaction, and then he inclines his head fractionally. “That is your right. But hear me when I say, binding or none, you have nothing to fear from me, Samuel Winchester.”

Sam stares at him, unable to find the words to express his disbelief. He should feel anger, but what he feels is something that verges on defeat - a deep and weary numbness. He dreams nearly every night of fire and pain; great, blood-rusted iron chains and the mocking laughter of something ancient and terrible. He has the Devil in his head and he cannot get him out. And now here he stands in front of him, a vision projected in flesh and blood, and Sam can feel the old, treacherous desire for contact. The fascination with darkness and power that has dogged him his entire life, the trait he has always identified within himself as his keenest weakness and his greatest opportunity. Power he can use to save people, power that he knows he’s strong enough to control. Isn’t he? He is no longer certain of what he is and isn’t capable. The fear of it threatens to undo him completely.

And against the backdrop of his horror, there is a part of him that reacts with something akin to relief to the smooth, soothing tones of Lucifer’s voice. There is a facet of him that accepts this creature completely. It is the part of his being that lived soul-to-grace with this incredible power, that raged against it and with it, that howled its frustrations out against the inevitability of this creature, and finally, that made this unstoppable force of existence pause to consider the enduring love that can exist between brothers. It’s faint, but it sits behind the flurry of fear and grief and rage that boils within him. Crippled by confusion, he simply does not know how to reconcile the two.

“I want you to find the creature and kill it,” he says eventually.

Lucifer’s lips part slightly, and then he blinks, nods. It is clear that he wanted more, and that he would happily continue this discussion. Sam thinks he picks up disappointment in the archangel’s eyes. He has stopped cringing away now, and his jaw has unclenched, as though with Sam’s increased composure comes a lessening of whatever discomfort he was feeling before. Sam notes it, and files the information away for further analysis later.

“I can do this,” Lucifer says slowly, “But not yet.”

“Why the hell not?” Dean and Sam exchange wary glances and Sam nods for Lucifer to answer the question.

“I expended a great deal of my energy answering your summons.” Lucifer flexes his fingers, loosening them from the tight fists he’d formed under the pressure of Sam’s anger. “Much of my being, my power, is rooted in the Cage. I may have answered your call, Sam, but I am not free.”

“When then?” Sam asks.

The archangel sighs a long breath out and appears to consider the question. He shrugs, and folds his arms. “It depends on many factors. The ritual creates an easy channel for the requested to reach the summoner, but it can only do so much. The bars of my Cage are very strong. Much of my power will always be trapped. It is as my Father willed it.”

“How long?” Dean asks flatly.

For once, Lucifer acknowledges his question. “I am not without a basic level of raw power in these matters regardless,” he remarks dryly, “But even for me it will take time. I’ve never done this before, Dean Winchester. These are singular times, and as such even I cannot say for certain.”

“No games,” Sam snaps.

“No games,” Lucifer reassures him immediately.

“This thing is powerful. If you’re not at full strength, if, like you say, you’ll never be at full strength, then can you even kill it at all?”

Beside him, Dean shifts uneasily at his brother’s question. The thought had been in his mind too since the moment the Devil revealed he was out of juice. But Lucifer is shrugging, one hand raised from his folded arms, a flick of long fingers expressing his unconcern. “I can kill it. All the Outer Realm creatures are powerful on this plane, but judging by the fact we’re not standing in the middle of an ashen wasteland, I will assume that this is one of the smaller ones - comparatively speaking.”

“Tell that to the people it’s dusted,” Dean growls.

Again, Lucifer shrugs. “When I am recovered we shall see who the more powerful being is.”

Sam finds himself rubbing at the dull ache building behind his eyes. Lucifer’s posturing is belied by the fatigue Sam can see hiding in the tightness of his jaw and the stiffness of his shoulders. He looks to Sam as tired as Sam once more finds himself feeling. “What do you need?” he asks quietly.

“Rest,” Lucifer replies immediately. “All the information you’ve currently gathered on the abomination. Time to recover my strength so that I can begin tracking it.”

“We can’t waste time on this,” Sam reminds him. “We haven’t heard anything from it in a few weeks, but what it’s done so far…” He trails off, shaking his head, and when he looks up he finds Lucifer watching him.

“Give me time to centre myself,” the archangel says softly. “Return this evening with your information, and we will begin the hunt then.”

Dean frowns unhappily at the delay, but Sam meets the archangel’s gaze and finds no deception there. It is clear that the Devil needs time to rest before he can be of any use to them. Indeed, he notes that from Lucifer, brightest and most proud of his Father’s angels, such an admission of weakness is not something he would ever have expected to hear.

“All right. This evening.”

They leave the archangel standing by the window, and although he makes himself turn his back and walk away, Sam feels the angel’s eyes on him long after the bedroom door has closed.

  
  


*

  
  


Bobby Singer can feel trouble coming. It makes his muscles tight and his shoulders ache, and right now he has knots across his back a tree would be proud of. He’s grabbing a beer from the chiller in the kitchen and every nerve he has is alight with tension. Just beyond the thin kitchen wall one of the oldest, greatest Powers in the universe is sleeping.

The top of the beer pops off with a metallic clink that’s loud in the quiet of the cabin. He drinks, resigned to the unpleasant warmth of the liquid, and listens to the soft noises of the forest outside. To the front of the cabin he can hear Sam tapping away on his laptop and fiddling with kit to get their incredibly expensive internet connection working. Bobby doesn’t have anything against modern technology, it’s far too useful for that, but some of the things Sam can do with a laptop and a few of his strange black boxes impresses even him. At least the kid seems to be coping so far.

The floor creaks softly beneath Dean’s tread as he comes to stand beside Bobby, reaching for a beer of his own. He too grimaces at the too warm temperature of it and shakes his head. “Need to get that wiring sorted,” he says.

“Solar panels first,” Bobby replies. “With the genny they’ll kick out enough to power the place if we’re careful. Be better once the storm’s broken anyway.”

They look out through the kitchen window across the wide yard to the rough track that wends its way through the trees and up to the road. The cabin is a long way off the beaten track, two hours drive to the nearest tiny town. Far enough to be secluded, not too far that they cannot get back for supplies.

“How is he?” Bobby asks.

Dean glances over his shoulder and through the door to the living room beyond. Sam is sat on one of the couches, turning a box over in his hands to check a connection. “Seems okay so far,” he replies, voice low.

Bobby huffs and folds his arms. “Keep an eye on him,” he says. “Don’t let him do this alone.”

“I don’t intend to, Bobby.”

It’s warm and stuffy in the cabin, the air heavy with the approach of the storm. At least Bobby chooses to believe that it’s the fault of the storm, for otherwise he could assign the claustrophobic atmosphere to the weight of the monster living in their back bedroom, and that’s something he doesn’t want to dwell on. “When’s he going to be ready to work?” he asks, with a nod towards the wall.

Dean flicks his eyebrows skywards, entirely unimpressed by Lucifer’s 'needs.' “He’s resting up till this evening, then Sam’s going to go in and start grilling him on how to get going.”

The older man grunts an acknowledgement and glares at the forest outside.

“I know, Bobby. I don’t like it either, but he’s all we’ve got right now. And...you didn’t see those kids, man. Fucking tragic. Disgusting. I can’t let that happen again.”

“You don’t have to tell me, boy. I know why we’re doing this. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.”

The two men share a look of resigned understanding, and sip at their beers.

“Just look out for him,” Bobby says quietly. “Sam’s gonna need all the help he can get through this.”

Dean’s gaze finds Sam, still fussing with his gadgets in the living room, and doesn’t miss the dark shadows under his brother’s eyes. “Don’t worry, Bobby,” he says. “I will.”


	6. Ground Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between now and Stull a lot has happened. Sam lays down some ground rules.

In the forests south of Midasville the evening is drawing down, and the shadows are stretching. Far along the least traversed of the minor trails, the lights of a log cabin glow softly in the gloom. Within the frame of their panels the silhouette of a man can be seen, strangely unmoving.

Sam stands in the kitchen of their hidden cabin and looks down at the papers he’s collected, trying to think if there’s anything he’s failed to include. He has in his hands a stack of printed out notes, a jotter, and tucked under one arm the rolled up length of a map of the US. Dean and Bobby are in the main room, and the scents of gun polish and reheated pie float through the doorway. He’s exhausted, and he hasn’t eaten since Dean woke him earlier this afternoon, but the smell of the food turns his stomach.

The layout of their log cabin is something a realtor might describe as 'spacious.' It has a large separate main room onto which open two bedrooms and the kitchen. The kitchen itself has doors to a utility room and the small box room where they’re keeping Lucifer. Upstairs is a bathroom, storage, and a third bedroom. It's hardly the cramped confines of the Cage, but even so there's a particular sensation of reality turned sideways and gone off-key about using it to keep a fallen archangel prisoner.

Sam closes his eyes. He knows that he’s delaying the inevitable, but the idea of facing the Devil again puts the coppery taste of fear in his mouth. He can feel the weight of Dean’s gaze lingering between his shoulder blades and knows that despite telling his brother he would rather do this alone, he’s one step away from Dean coming in here and joining him anyway. It’s the idea of that which eventually puts his hand on the door to the Devil’s room. This time he doesn’t allow himself to knock.

Lucifer is sitting on the dusty bed, his back to the wall, and he tilts his head to regard Sam as he pauses on the threshold. It’s like looking at a tiger, at rest but with the capacity to change from serene to deadly in a moment, and Sam has to forcefully remind himself that he has this tiger on a chain. He swallows at the interest he sees in Lucifer’s cold blue eyes, uncertain if his voice will hold steady when he speaks.

“Sam,” Lucifer greets him, and it’s as though he’s welcoming an old friend to his home.

The fear of weakness and the look in the Devil’s eyes provokes a rush of hot anger in Sam that is both surprising, and welcome. He uses the spreading warmth of it to straighten his back and narrow his eyes. The burn of it gives him strength to step inside the room and close the door behind himself. He’d promised Dean that he would leave it open, but there are things he may have to say to Lucifer, things the Devil may say to him, that he doesn’t want his brother to hear.

“I brought what you asked for,” he says, holding up the papers.

Lucifer pushes himself to the edge of the bed, setting his feet on the floor. Not once does his gaze leave Sam’s face.

“Are you ready to look at them?” Sam asks.

The archangel doesn’t respond at first. He’s scrutinising Sam, looking him up and down as though checking him for damage. Sam frowns in wary confusion.

“No Dean?” Lucifer asks quietly, and then dips his chin in acknowledgement when Sam simply shakes his head once.

“What are you looking at?”

“You, Sam,” Lucifer replies.

“Stop it.”

The archangel blinks, and then looks away. Seeing the movement Sam closes his eyes briefly, frustration and fascination warring inside him. If Lucifer, if the _spell,_ is so literal, then he is going to have to be very careful what he says to the Devil. But on the other hand, he appreciates the level of control over the situation that it gives him. He wonders if this makes him a bad person. A worse person than he already is.

“Sam, will you please tell me what is going on?”

“You know what’s going on,” Sam replies flatly, and begins pulling out the timeline of the creature’s attacks. He hears Lucifer sigh softly, and catches the movement of his hands out of the corner of his eye. The Devil leans his elbows on his knees, hands hanging between his legs and Sam reads weariness in the posture.

The silence stretches, broken only by the flick of paper as Sam sorts the sheets back and forth into some kind of order, wondering where to start.

“I trust you.”

“What?” Sam looks up from the print outs and stares, thrown by the statement.

“I trust you,” Lucifer repeats. “But I must ask that you at least fill me in on what has happened between now and-” he pauses, shrugs slightly. “The last time I saw you.”

It’s a fair request, and when Sam thinks back on just how much the archangel has missed since Stull Cemetery he realises quite how much has happened. They have been far and come a long way since those desperate, bloody times. His expression must say as much, for Lucifer, who has slowly returned his gaze to Sam’s face, tilts his head in query.

“All right,” Sam says, folding the papers against his chest. “All right.”

The release of tension in the Devil’s shoulders is obvious, and Sam eyes him for a moment in curiosity. He thinks of all the things he’s going to have to tell him about, from his experiences as a soulless, to Castiel, to-, and here he pauses. The Leviathans.

“We haven’t told you about the Leviathans,” he says.

Lucifer’s eyes narrow, and his expression turns wary. “Go on.”

Sam stops, reaching for the words. How to explain what has happened, what they have done. What _Castiel_ has done. About Raphael. He remembers the fury and disbelief in Lucifer’s eyes when Gabriel faced him down at the Elysian Fields. The despair of someone railing against family over and over. The destructive rage of which Lucifer is so readily capable. The death of a brother is a terrible thing. He looks at the bare floor, at the dust on the floorboards and the naked bulb that hums above their heads. The only place to sit is the musty bed.

“Come,” Sam says, and turns for the door. It makes his flesh crawl to turn his back on the Devil, but Sam Winchester is a strong man and he does not falter. A moment later he hears Lucifer follow.

Both Dean and Bobby look up in concern as Sam leads Lucifer through the kitchen and into the living room, and from there towards his own room.

“Sammy?” Dean asks, half-rising.

“It’s fine, Dean,” Sam says, waving him away. He doesn’t look to see how Lucifer reacts to the others, simply opens the door to his room, and closes it firmly behind them both once the archangel has stepped inside.

Lucifer looks around with interest, taking in the far more comfortably furnished room with apparent satisfaction. Sam has the uncomfortable impression that his approval leans more towards satisfaction that Sam is suitably accommodated over any increase in comfort for himself that their move has produced. The idea of the Devil caring about Sam’s living conditions makes him grimace. This room holds no special significance to him, it’s merely better suited for what he knows could become a long explanation.

“Sit down,” Sam says, and Lucifer takes the small armchair in the corner, moving the blankets piled there to the desk. He sits back with one last glance around the room, his eyes skipping over the protective symbols etched around the top of the wall, to the kit bags Sam has stashed in the corner, and down to the heavily warded iron chest that sits against one wall. Sam gives him a moment to settle himself, and then sits down on the edge of the bed facing him.

“Okay,” he says, interlacing his fingers and searching for a way to start. “Okay, it went like this.”

It takes nearly two hours for Sam to fully explain all that has happened in the last year and a half. Lucifer listens intently, and Sam watches his expression closely, hyper aware of the potential for trouble. He doesn’t intend for it to take that long, but once he starts he finds himself taking tangents to explain the reasoning behind their actions, and some of them are strange and winding tales. The archangel listens in silence, interjecting only occasionally to confirm a detail. He nods slowly when Sam speaks of how he was returned soulless to the world, and his expression remains mild. When Sam reaches the parts about Castiel, and what the seraph did Lucifer’s eyes narrow fractionally. The news of Raphael’s death is taken on board with a slow blink that leaves Sam wondering if he should do anything to head off an explosion of rage later on. But the expected fury doesn’t manifest and finally, having explained the presence of the Leviathans in the world, Sam falls silent.

Lucifer’s gaze has turned inwards, and his eyes drift closed. To all outside appearances he seems to be bringing some emotion under control. Sam shifts warily, waiting for the sly remark, the cutting, distasteful joke at his expense. It takes a long time before Lucifer speaks.

“And are you well, Sam?” he asks, opening his eyes to meet his gaze.

Sam leans back a little, setting his shoulders. The question is bizarre coming from Lucifer's lips, but this isn't the first time he's brought it up and there has to be some plan behind it. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Because I care, Sa-”

“Okay, _enough.”_

Lucifer relents, but his lips are pressed together tightly. Sam glares at him. He can feel the muscles in his back tensing, and his fingers have curled themselves into fists on his knees. He is suddenly deeply, thoroughly angry. “Is this another one of your games?” he asks. “You think you can trick me into trusting you?”

For once, Lucifer is silent. He simply regards Sam with a curiously mild expression, such a far cry from the wicked leering that Sam remembers, that he’s experienced nearly every day since his soul’s return. “You think I’m just going to forget like that-” he snaps his fingers, “-all the things you did to me?”

The archangel tilts his head slightly, as though waiting for Sam to expand upon this concept. “I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know what it is that you’re remembering.”

“You fucking _bastard_ -” Sam rises to his feet, but the archangel doesn’t break eye contact. He holds Sam’s look, features stern but devoid of any indication of mockery, and Sam finds himself struggling for a target. This is Lucifer as he was in the beginning, when they first met, when Sam let him step inside his body and share his headspace. The malice, the glee, the delight in torture that he remembers so well from the Cage, that he has burned into his memory forever, it’s not present.

There is a sharp knock at the door. “Sam? Everything all right in there?” 

Dean’s voice is muffled by the wooden panelling, but Sam can hear the tightly controlled alarm in his tone. He finds himself breathing heavily, like he cannot quite get enough air into his lungs, and can’t work out if it’s rage or fear doing it to him. Lucifer stares at him in silence.

“It’s okay, Dean. It’s fine. You can come in,” he says, because maybe he does just need his brother there to tell him he’s not going entirely insane.

The door opens sharply and Dean looks in. Lucifer ignores him. Sam meets his brother’s eyes and nods, not bothering to try and hide his uneven breathing. Dean takes a step into the room, casting a suspicious look in the Devil’s direction. “Everything okay?”

Sam nods, forcing his breathing back to normal and looking to Dean rather than the silent archangel. Dean’s obvious disapproval of and clear disgust for the archangel gives Sam a strange kind of reassurance. He’s not crazy. His anger isn’t unjustified. Dean would tell him if he’d gone mad, or at the very least Sam would be able to read the knowledge of it in him. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah it is. We’re just going to go over what’s happened so far with the creature.”

Dean moves as though he’s going to settle next to the desk and Sam shakes his head. “It’s okay, like I said. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

Dean gives him a hard look, but eventually nods. They’d talked about this earlier, and Dean hadn’t liked the idea of Sam alone with Lucifer, but his younger brother had been insistent. _I need to do this, Dean,_ Sam had said, and Dean has done Hell, has lived torture, breathed shame, and he understood. Some things have to be faced down alone, just to prove that they can be.

“I’ll be outside,” he says, and with one last withering glance at Lucifer, he leaves and pulls the door closed behind him.

Slowly, his expression indicating clearly the anger that still seethes just beneath the surface of his calm, Sam sits back down on the edge of the bed. Lucifer remains silent, as though judging any further attempt at conversation will only result in the same outcome. Sam suspects that he’s right.

“Here,” Sam says, reaching behind himself and holding out the sheaf of papers. “These are all the incidents we’ve found so far. The ones Crowley provided are marked in red.”

Quietly, Lucifer takes the print outs and begins to read through them. He lingers over the photographs, deep in thought, but sets aside the medical reports they’ve pulled for the people who wandered the streets. Seeing him come to the end of the pages, Sam unrolls the map and spreads it on the floor between them, pinning the corners down with books.

“These are the locations, they’re numbered on here and the print outs,” he says. Lucifer lowers the papers and leans forward to look at the map. He hums a low note, then turns his attention back to the photographs, leaning back in his chair. Sam watches him, waiting for some indication that he can make sense of what’s going on. Lucifer rests his chin in the fingers of one hand and sighs softly.

“Is this everything you have?” he asks.

Sam runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah,” he replies. But it occurs to him that there is something else he hasn’t mentioned. Something that Lucifer might understand, something he’s kept quiet from Dean partially because he’s not even sure he wants to think about it himself. Clearly his expression gives something away, for Lucifer dips his chin to capture Sam’s gaze, and says his name in query.

Sam shakes his head. “I, well. I don’t know.” He looks down at the map, feeling foolish. His head has been so messed up recently he doesn’t even know what it is he’s felt. How accurate and reliable can a person be when they’re deeply sleep-deprived and thoroughly exhausted?

“Sam, tell me,” Lucifer prompts.

“Okay, fine. I don’t think it’s anything really, but I just don’t know.” He looks up and meets the archangel’s concerned eyes. “I keep _…dreaming_ this bell. Like, it’s happened a couple of times now. And it happened just before the last attack. With the kids. I dreamed like maybe I saw the creature. Like maybe I was dreaming it even as it was happening.”

Lucifer nods slowly and gives a small shrug. “It’s possible,” he replies. “What kind of bell?”

A little surprised at the ready acceptance of his words, Sam hesitates, collecting the hazy memories. “Uh, a kindof church bell I think. A single one, like you’d get at the top of a small steeple. I’ve...I’ve heard it a couple of times now. In dreams. And I think they correspond to when the creature is moving around. Or something. Maybe.”

He looks up at Lucifer with some embarrassment, but the archangel simply nods again. “It would not be unusual for you to experience a type of claircognizance, considering what you are.”

Sam leans back, the news of this like a wash of cold water over his skin. “What do you mean? I thought- I thought all that was done with now. I haven’t, there’s been no demon blood.”

Lucifer lets the papers fall back into his lap and laces his fingers across them. He shrugs. “Many of your potential abilities have nothing to do with the blood those fools fed you. You were made to be an angelic vessel, Sam, not a tainted one. As a true vessel you have access to a certain skill set that ordinary humans do not. How exactly did you think you were able to cast such a complex spell as this summoning ritual with absolutely no prior experience?”

Sam blinks. “I just thought…”

“That it was an easy spell? A simple one? No, Sam. Not at all. The truth is that as my true vessel, you are a complement to my own abilities, and I am _very_ good at magic - of all kinds.”

“Huh.”

Lucifer is watching him closely, as though he expects anger from Sam, but it’s an emotion the younger Winchester doesn’t feel. In fact, he’s not sure how to take the news. An affinity for casting magic might or might not be of benefit to him, he simply isn’t sure at this stage. It's true that he's always had a knack for spells, not anything on the level of Castiel's abilities of course, but there'd always been a reason the angel favoured him as a fellow ritualist over his brother. As ever, he proceeds with caution and lets the Devil play his hand. Lucifer, for his part, seems a little thrown by Sam’s lack of reaction.

“Do you think it’s a clue then?” he asks.

Lucifer shrugs again. “Perhaps.”

Sam sighs. “Okay, fine then. Can you work anything out from what we’ve gotten so far?”

The archangel looks down at the photographs he’s sorted to the top of the paper pile. “I’m afraid I need more time. These are good signs, but they’re pretty unremarkable all told. There are many creatures that produce similar, I could list you a hundred. No, it’s the victims that interest me. Clearly it’s feeding, but it’s the method that’s novel. I need to do some working out, Sam. Build a spell that will help me track it.”

He can’t help it, Sam yawns. It’s coming up on 10pm and despite having woken up after midday he can feel the customary drag of exhaustion pulling at him, but underlined now by the drain the summoning put on every bit of him. He tries to hide the movement behind curled fingers, but Lucifer’s eyes are sharp and the archangel is already paying close attention to him. 

“Sorry,” he says, despite himself.

“Rest,” Lucifer replies, only for Sam to shake his head. The archangel frowns. “Your stubbornness is normally of great credit to you, Sam. But in this case you’re doing yourself no favours. I did what I could to shield you from the drain, but I was restricted.”

Sam blinks at him. “You did what now?”

Lucifer’s expression closes off immediately and he shakes his head. “If we are to track this creature I will need you at full strength. We may need to go far before this is over.”

“Lucifer, how did you shield me?” Sam presses, knowing from their previous interactions that Lucifer will be forced to answer such a direct question if Sam applies enough pressure.

The archangel sighs and gives Sam a reproachful look. “I had to rebalance the power drain your ritual required. You may have a predisposition towards magic, but you are not an experienced summoner, Sam. You would have been damaged if I’d allowed you to take the full brunt of the cost.”

“So what, you took it instead?”

Lucifer inclines his head, and once more Sam makes a single, thoughtful noise in response. He’s not sure what to make of this revelation. But it makes sense for Lucifer to protect the person that’s allowing him even a small amount of freedom outside the Cage. After all, without Sam, Lucifer would still be locked down there with his brother raging beside him. Sam doesn’t remember Michael in the Cage, but then the oldest archangel had no reason to come rescue him from anything. With a sigh he levers himself further onto the bed and leans back to watch the archangel.

“Don’t worry about me, you just go right ahead and write your spell. I’ll wait.”

Lucifer gives him a long, considering look that Sam returns calmly. With an inclination of his head that clearly conveys the sentiment _be it on your head then,_ Lucifer reaches across the desk and picks up a discarded biro. Turning the print outs over, he begins to make notes in a script that Sam cannot quite decipher. Were he not so damnably tired he would have gotten up and gone over to look, but as it is he lets himself relax and watch as the Devil sits quietly and begins work on his spell.

  
  


*

  
  


Sam comes awake suddenly, still gripped by the terror of chains and blood, his ears still ringing with the mournful tolling of that lone bell. The room is dark and his skin crawls with the bite of black iron, his lungs empty of air, leaving him gasping and light-headed. His back hits something solid and immovable, his heels digging into a surface that's made of soft, loose material, but his brain cannot escape the darkness and his mind is howling _where is this where is this-_

"Sam."

There is a flash and flicker of light, so bright and startlingly sudden that he twitches painfully, fingers clawing for the weapon that should be there. The stark illumination shows him his room in the hunting cabin - old log walls and the iron chest against the wall. The scratch of protective runes along the uppermost logs, high enough to be mistaken for simple decoration, and the pile of blankets moved from the chair to the writing desk. The chair in the corner where the Devil sits watching him.

The light is gone as suddenly as it flared, and his muscles spasm painfully; dread and horror and despair, and the cold, sickening rush of fear.

In the darkness thunder rolls, and then there's a warm flicker of light as a match is struck, a lantern lit carefully and pushed further back on the writing desk to avoid blinding him. Lucifer leans forward slowly, and in the new light Sam can see the caution in his eyes as the Devil seeks to hook his gaze.

"Lucifer," Sam chokes.

"You were dreaming," the Devil murmurs.

From the window comes a staccato tapping that starts heavy and ponderous, slowly building into a strident rhythm. He realises then that the roaring in his ears is that of his own blood and panic, that the room is otherwise silent save for the rain that is gradually building to a downpour. The storm that Bobby had predicted has finally found them.

All at once he knows where he is. His brain is still scrambling for all the details, throwing off the last tangling threads of the dream, and his heart still pounds near painfully in his breast, but clarity has finally returned. He blinks away the last vestiges of horror, but nonetheless his left hand goes to the binding chain on his wrist, searching for its reassuring coolness. Lucifer's gaze follows the movement as Sam's fingers find the slender links, and his expression fades from concern to something cool and flat. Sam thinks he should feel bad for that, but the thump of his heart and the sting of adrenaline in his system makes it impossible not to check he still has its protective weight in place.

He shifts and the skin across his shoulder blades tells him that he bruised it when his back hit the headboard in his mad scramble to work out where he was. "What time is it?" he asks.

Lucifer's gaze flicks to the clock on the bedside table, easily visible to Sam if he would but turn his head. That he doesn't because doing so would mean taking his eyes from the archangel in the corner is something that Lucifer chooses not to comment on. 

"A little past one am," the archangel replies quietly.

The lightning flares again, lesser now that the lantern is lit, and two heartbeats later the thunder cracks across the sky like a gunshot. Sam does close his eyes then, finally feeling his pulse returning to a reasonable speed.

"I heard the bell again," he says, eyes still closed, and hears the chair creak under Lucifer's weight as the archangel leans forward.

"Did you see anything else?" Lucifer asks in a low voice, and Sam could happily snap something vicious at him in reply as he remembers blood and black iron hooks, pain and a horror that ignites rage in his breast when it meets the careful solicitude of the archangel's tone.

"No," he says instead, biting the single word out like a curse.

The rain is a thunderous roar now, hammering against the glass of the window and the shingles above, punctuated by the angry roll of thunder. Sam lets its fury carry away the sullen snarl of anger in his own chest, forcing his breathing to even out. He has control here by dint of the binding chain on his wrist if nothing else. Lucifer is doing only that which he has been commanded to do - help them find a way to identity and kill the thing that crawled its way out of Purgatory along with Eve.

Even so.

"Lucifer," he says, opening his eyes. The archangel is watching him in silence, expression guarded and wary. "I didn't say you could be in here while I sleep. Can you leave, please? Go out into the main room. Wait there."

He doesn't remember telling the archangel he could stay, but he doesn't remember falling asleep with him still here either. If Lucifer was human he would have known just staying there into the small hours, sitting in the dark while someone slept, was unsettling. He would have left, if he were human. Sam stares at him and watches as the archangel's face smooths out once more, going from wary to utterly blank. The change is unsettling, and memory tugs at him again telling him that something is off, something is not right, that he's missing a vital point here-

"Of course."

Lucifer rises to his feet, all fluid grace and unconcern. "Good night, Sam," he says, and when he opens the door to the bedroom he leaves the lantern behind, disappearing silently into the darkness of the cabin and closing the door behind himself.

Sam watches him go and feels something twist inside his chest. It's somewhere between despair and sadness, and he doesn't understand it, why he should feel this way about a creature that took them both to Hell and- no. A creature that claims the Hell he sees is not the Hell Sam knows he lived through. Confused and angry, he wraps himself in his sheets and turns his back to the lantern's light. Outside, the storm continues to rage.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s past eight when Sam awakens. The storm has drifted north during the last few hours of the night, and sunlight dapples the bed coverlet making the room unseasonably hot. Scrubbing the heels of his hands across his face, he shifts uncomfortably in his clothes and looks around. The lamp has burnt out, and Lucifer has left the remnants of his work on the desk next to it. Outside the songbirds are in full chorus and he can hear someone hammering on something. It sounds like either Bobby or Dean are working on the solar panels again, trying to give them a little more power than their tiny portable generator can provide. Surrounded by such normalcy it is hard to believe that last night he fell asleep with the Devil himself in his room.

He rises, takes a cursory look at Lucifer’s scrawlings from the night before and finds that, as he suspected, he is unable to decipher them. He thinks of Lucifer’s eyes in the darkness of the room, watching him silently, like he used to in the days running up to the end. Sam wonders if he should have been angrier last night, more afraid, swifter to condemn himself for his stupidity in falling asleep with him there. And then he wonders if he does none of these things simply because awakening to find Lucifer sitting quietly in the room with him hasn’t been something out of the ordinary for far too long now. He wonders if it matters that this feels like a twisted type of stability. He thinks maybe he hates himself for it.

His movements are sharper than they need to be when he grabs a fresh set of clothes and a towel, and heads out into the main room.

Dean is sitting on a chair by the kitchen door, and Sam can see the gleam of an angel blade in his lap. Lucifer is on the other side of the room, his back to them as he looks out of the window and across the yard. Both of them look to Sam as he emerges.

“Morning,” Dean says shortly, and Sam can tell from his tone that he’s angry.

“Hey,” he replies, and then turns his attention to Lucifer. The archangel turns fully to face him, and nods, as though waiting on something.

“You were out here all night?” Sam asks, already suspecting the answer.

“He wouldn’t go to his room,” Dean replies for him. “Said you’d told him to wait out here. That you'd gone to bed already.”

Sam nods slowly and breathes out a long breath. He knows that Dean is angry about Lucifer apparently roaming free, but to Sam it doesn’t make any difference. Lucifer is bound, he’s proven that already. Still, it occurs to him with painful certainty that he’s let his brother down. Sam may be messed up from months of having a demonic archangel as his invisible companion, but it’s not fair on everyone else to assume that they'll share Sam’s resignation to his presence. He nods in Dean’s direction, acceptance in his expression. “I ordered him to wait in here. I was- fuck, I was exhausted. Sorry, I should have checked with you.”

Dean looks warily surprised, but nods an acknowledgement, and Sam knows he’s putting his brother on edge, but simply doesn’t know how to stop it from happening. He needs Dean to just go with all this, to let him be in control and move things along as he needs to. And he is, _he is._ But still Sam feels his shoulders tightening as he imagines what his brother must be thinking of him. The fact he didn't barge right in and wake him up last night tells him that he's already triggered a level of concern for his health that means Dean would rather sit all night and stare down Lucifer than risk waking his brother from sleep.

“Did you come up with anything last night?” Dean breaks the silence.

“Uh, no,” Sam says shortly. “I don’t-, Lucifer? Did you write anything?”

The archangel folds his arms and gives a small shrug. Dean is looking between the pair of them, searching for a clue as to what’s going on. “I have a start, yes. These things take time to be accurate.”

“Good, good.”

There’s a stretched, awkward silence, and then Sam swallows. “Dean, I-, uh. I need to talk to Lucifer for a bit. Alone.”

His brother’s expression turns disapproving, and there’s a flat underscore of anger in his eyes, but he gives one slow nod and rises to his feet. “I’ll be in the kitchen. If you need me.”

“Thanks.”

Lucifer’s gaze hasn’t once left Sam since he turned to greet him, and he stands now, arms folded, watching him with calm blue eyes. He blinks slowly, as though he has all the time in the world to let this situation play out. Sam meets his gaze and swallows again. “We need to set out some rules,” he says firmly. Reassuringly, Lucifer simply nods.

“Okay.” Sam finds himself nodding again, and mentally kicks himself. He needs to get a grip and he knows it. “When Dean asks you a question, you answer him. When he tells you to do something, you do it. And you’re not to creep people out by being weird - you know how to act decently around humans, I know you do.”

When he pauses, Lucifer waits a moment then says, “I apologise if I unnerved you last night. I wanted to let you rest. You clearly needed the sleep.”

“Yeah, well. It was weird. I don’t want you watching me sleep.”

The cat-like blink he gets in reply to that just makes Sam want to twitch even more. Like almost every angel he's ever encountered the archangel has always had some kind of disconnect between personal space and the requirement to respect it. It's something to do with not usually having a physical body he thinks.

“And what if Dean tells me to do something that contradicts your own orders?” Lucifer asks mildly. “I will not do anything that will put you in danger, or at risk.”

Sam stares at him for a second, his mind whirling. He doesn’t know how much of their conversation Dean can hear from the kitchen. Certainly his brother hasn’t closed the door between the two rooms. And Lucifer raises a valid point; Dean has a tendency to overrule Sam’s decisions if he feels like he knows better, or when he wants to keep Sam out of trouble. For his own good. The very thought of it makes Sam’s blood begin to boil, and he struggles to keep his expression blank. One thing he will not allow is for Lucifer to come between himself and Dean. Nonetheless...

“I...” he says quietly. The silence between them is loud, and he can’t hear anything from the other room. He thinks maybe Dean is listening. It makes him lower his voice to something soft, low enough for just him and the archangel. “You will obey me.”

There is satisfaction in Lucifer’s gaze and he responds with a single nod of his head. The mildest, most subtle of smiles plays around the corner of his eyes, visible only to someone who knows his expressions intimately. Someone like Sam. Frustrated suddenly, Sam feels his jaw tense.

“Go wait in the back room,” he says. “Work on the spell. I’m going to catch a shower.”

He watches Lucifer pad silently through the kitchen and into the room beyond, and then heads for the bathroom before Dean can corner him. Cold water or not, he spends a long time under the running stream, eyes closed and fists clenched.

  
  


*

  
  


Dean and Bobby have their heads bent over the incident map when Sam returns from the shower. Spread out it takes up almost the entirety of the kitchen table, red markers scattered across its surface.

“Something else happen?” Sam asks in concern when they both look up.

Dean shakes his head, but nods towards the back room. “Anything useful from him?”

“He’s started on the tracking spell, but he’s out of mojo and it’s going to take a bit of time.”

Bobby growls, “How much time?” and Sam shakes his head.

“Let’s get him out here then,” Dean says. "He can give us an estimate."

When Lucifer emerges from the box room at Sam’s quiet summons through the door, Sam is struck once more by the feeling that something is not quite right about the Devil. Lucifer leans one shoulder against the doorframe and folds his arms in idle nonchalance, blue eyes hooded and mild as he sweeps his gaze around the gathered humans. Dean meets his eyes with a glare heavy with banked anger, and Bobby shifts uncomfortably, keeping the table between them both. It makes Sam cringe inwardly to see how their old friend struggles to maintain his composure around the fallen archangel.

“Progress?” Dean asks shortly.

Lucifer blinks slowly, and Sam looks at him, but the archangel has clearly taken their earlier conversation on board. “The spell is progressing,” he replies. “These things take time.”

“How much time?”

Sam can see the amusement in Lucifer’s eyes at the frustration in Dean’s voice. It’s subtle, but present behind the tiredness he thinks hovers in the angel’s features. “The spell will be finished over the next few days, my ability to power it will return over the next few weeks.”

“Weeks?!”

They’re all taken aback by the news, but it’s Bobby’s voice that cuts the sharpest across the room. “You mean to tell me we’re camping out here until you get your act in gear?”

Even Dean looks sideways at him in surprise, and Sam is reminded uncomfortably of how deeply Lucifer has scarred them all, each in their own way.

“Unless you want the creature to turn up in person before we’re ready to deal with it, then yes.”

Sam steps between Lucifer and the others, bringing their attention round to him instead. He knows, oh he knows, just how easily Lucifer’s words catch in the skin and drag anger right out of a person like a poisoned barb, but if they’re going to work together they can’t afford to indulge themselves like that.

“While Lucifer gets his strength back, we’re going to work on tracking it down and come up with a plan for drawing it out,” Sam says.

Dean and Bobby are silent, Bobby with his lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line, Dean with brows lowered and jaw tight. “And if it comes back before you’re ready for it?”

“Then we’ll have a chance to intervene,” Sam says before Lucifer can reply.

“What if it’s gone?” Dean asks. “I don’t think we’d ever have that kind of luck, but we’ve not seen it in two weeks.”

“It hasn’t gone anywhere,” Lucifer replies. “These creatures feed in cycles. They emerge, consume their prey, then go dormant for a while. It’s part of their manifestation.”

“Figures.”

They stare at one another in grim silence for a few moments, then Bobby shakes his head. “Why’s its pattern changed? It started with Leviathans, and now it’s on to humans.”

Lucifer shrugs. “Collateral damage. Leviathans are a far better source of energy, closer in vibration to what it is. You may rest assured that if it wasn’t for your little Leviathan infestation then this thing would already have eaten its way across half the country.”

Every human in the room has bristled at Lucifer’s callous summary, but something else has occurred to Sam. “What’s the end game though?” he asks. “Why does it need all this...food? What’s it going to do with itself once it’s finished eating?”

Again, Lucifer shrugs. He eyes the younger Winchester with interest. “It’s all about filling the available space. Give it room to grow, and feed it, and it’ll get as big as you allow it to.”

“No end game?”

“Not everything has an end game, Sam. It’s not necessarily a mindless beast, but it’s likely that all it 'wants' is to exist here.”

“Sam, a word?”

Dean motions to his younger brother with a nod of his head towards the living room. “Sure,” Sam glances between Bobby and Lucifer, and then follows Dean out into the lounge. His brother closes the door between the rooms and then moves to the opposite side of the room. Sensing a lecture, Sam follows him.

“All right, what’s going on, Sam? I thought you were going to get him to look at the case and come up with a plan to deal with this thing. Now he’s what, using this as a vacation from hell?”

Sam shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly. “Look, Dean, no. That’s not how it is. Getting him out of hell took some of his energy too, a _lot_ of his energy. He can’t power this spell until he’s recovered and I don’t think we want him trying to either. If he messes it up then more people will die.”

That elicits a raised eyebrow in acknowledgement from his brother. “What was all that about last night? Taking him into your room like that. We agreed he was staying in one place until all this is done.”

Sam lets out a long breath and laces his fingers behind his head. He pauses to collect his words, staring up at the light fitting. Phrase this badly and Dean will take it as an excuse to explode, like he always does.

“Honestly? Mostly I just wanted to sit down.” At Dean’s look of disbelief, Sam ploughs on. “Look, Dean. Since he’s been in the Cage a lot has happened. War in heaven, Castiel trying to play god. _Raphael.”_

Dean’s expression remains stony. “He didn’t bat an eyelid when it came to killing Gabriel. I don’t think family means all that much to him any more, Sammy.”

Sam dips his head, acknowledging the point. “Yeah, I know. But I didn’t want to risk it. Dean, I can order him to do anything, and he’ll obey me. But this whole thing is going to be a hell of a lot easier if he does things off his own back without us twisting his arm into it.”

His brother considers this, then finally he sighs, shaking his head. “Yeah, okay. But I don’t like it.”

“You and me both,” Sam agrees. Relieved at the lack of an argument, he offers, “I told him he has to obey you and stop screwing around. If he’s going to stay here with us then he has to play by our rules.”

Dean nods slowly and looks his brother up and down. “All right, fine. But no more girly sleepovers, okay?”

Sam glares at him, then laughs. Dean slaps his shoulder, and for a few moments at least they’re just brothers once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be posting chapters on Wednesdays and Sundays, as that gives me enough time around life to check chapters over a couple of times before putting them up. (And still somehow manage to miss some formatting errors I'm sure.) Next time: Sam and Lucifer start to figure out how they're going to work together.


	7. Overtures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Devil has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting two interlinked chapters today, because one's too short to post alone but together they were too long to be left unsplit.

He’s standing on the porch enjoying the sun on his face and the taste of one of Dean’s bacon sandwiches when he hears the soft scuff of feet next to him. Sam takes a moment to savour the warmth and test his composure before he opens his eyes. He knows from the soft, careful tread who it must be.

“Lucifer.”

The archangel leans on the wooden rail next to him, and Sam watches as he looks out into the forest, eyes squinting slightly against the glare of the morning sun. When there’s no reply Sam forces himself to look away as he continues to eat, stuffing the last corner of the sandwich into his mouth, before reaching for the next one. It takes him a moment to notice that Lucifer is watching him closely.

“What?”

The archangel shakes his head slightly. “Nothing. You need to eat, to restore your energy.”

Sam pauses, considering this. He is ravenous, enough that the idea of indulging himself with four bacon sandwiches hasn’t provoked even the smallest twinge of health-conscious guilt in him. There’s fruit in the kitchen, and he fully intends to eat his way through that too. Even for him, it’s a noticeable increase in his food intake.

“This is the summoning spell, right?”

Lucifer nods and Sam purses his lips thoughtfully. It makes sense to have to restore the energy he put into the casting, and the most obvious way is sleep and food. His eyes wander to Lucifer’s face, noting again the subtle lines of strain on the archangel’s features. It’s a tightness in the shoulders, a stiffness to his gait and the barest greyness to his skin. In fact, it’s more obvious out here in the sunlight where Sam can really look at him.

“Do you want any?” he asks, indicating his plate. As far as he’s aware, angels don’t need to eat, even exhausted ones, and as expected, Lucifer shakes his head no.

“If you don’t mind me saying, you look kinda like crap.”

That elicits a soft laugh from the archangel. “Sam, I’m wounded.”

“Your ego can take it,” Sam replies, starting in on his sandwich again. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up. “Wait, are you actually…?”

Lucifer shifts his weight and sighs softly. “Not in any way you would be able to understand,” he offers after a while. “But, I do have concerns, Sam.”

“Go on.”

It seems as though Lucifer won’t speak again without prompting. The silence between them stretches, filled only by the shift and sigh of the leaves overhead. Sam can feel the tension rising in his body, tightening his jaw and killing his appetite. It’s not necessarily concern for Lucifer’s well being that moves him, but a heavy, mounting dread that makes him swallow uncomfortably.

When finally he does speak, Lucifer’s voice is hesitant and slow. “I am uncertain how long I can maintain my presence here on Earth, as things stand.” At Sam’s silence, he continues. “The summoning is already wavering. ...I can feel it. It is making it hard to hold on.”

Sam blinks, taken aback. Of all the things that could yet go wrong, he’d thought Lucifer’s presence here was secure. “What do you mean?”

Lucifer straightens, turning to face him, and his gaze is intent. “Sam, the strength of the summoning is reliant on the bond between summoner and summons. Because of what we are to each other the spell was able to work, even despite the added complication of the Cage. But, Sam. The spell will not hold if the ties between us are weak, or if the intent wavers.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You know we need you here.”

It is Lucifer that hesitates now, as though unsure of how to phrase his response. Sam is finding it hard to reconcile this new, cautious version of the archangel with the one that he knew before the Apocalypse, or the one that’s haunted his dreams for months.

“You may need me, Sam. But clearly, you do not _want_ me here.”

It takes Sam a few moments to rein in the reflexive swell of anger that floods through his body at Lucifer’s answer. To think that Lucifer cannot comprehend the reason behind Sam’s reluctance is mind boggling, and intensely, irreparably infuriating. The archangel sees his reaction and a low breath escapes him. He takes a step back, withdrawing further from Sam’s personal space.

“We’ve talked about this,” Sam says curtly. “You know I don’t believe you.”

“I understand that. But if you want this plan to succeed, Sam, we must learn to work together.”

Sam eyes him warily, waiting for the trap to be sprung. Because there’s always something with Lucifer, some awful truth that manages to snare him no matter how hard he struggles against it. The archangel is trying to read his expression, chin dipped low to look up into Sam’s eyes. “Explain,” Sam orders.

Lucifer nods once. “No matter what we are to each other, physically or metaphysically,” and here Lucifer holds up one hand as Sam flinches minutely, “We are no longer attuned as closely as we once were. Where your summoning laid the framework to bring me here, it’s your intent that _keeps_ me here. The link between us is poor, and so it’s becoming difficult for me to hold on to this form and remain on Earth. It’s as simple as that, Sam. If you truly want me to kill this creature for you, then we have to work together.”

Sam lets out a long breath, and closes his eyes. He wills the anger to leave him along with the breath from his lungs, but it’s hard, and he can feel it roiling in his stomach, burning through his muscles. Lucifer makes it sound easy, as though he can just cast aside months, _years_ of remembered pain and anguish. He thinks idly of how impossible this would be if he actually remembered every moment of his time in the Cage, rather than the scraps and flashes that come back to him in dreams and hallucinations. And then he thinks of all the people that are depending on them to put this right.

“We should try working together, attuning ourselves to each other again,” Lucifer says, and his voice is so careful, so cautious that it makes Sam want to punch him. “I can try to track the creature as we go, see what I can pick up.”

Attunement, like a machine, or some stupid new-age mumbo jumbo, Sam thinks. The anger in him is reaching for any outlet, and he lets it grab hold of the scornful thought, worrying at it like a dog with too strong jaws. Sam knows that if he lets the feeling go too far he’ll lose himself in it, and when that happens he’s not sure he’ll be able to come back from it.

“Samuel.”

“Don’t call me that,” he says coldly. “You want to attune with me? You what, you want me to say _yes_ to you again?”

Lucifer seems genuinely taken aback by the suggestion, and as Sam glares sideways at him he realises that he’s certain the archangel’s reaction is not an act. For all their twisted history, and because of it, Sam _knows_ Lucifer.

“I...do not think that would be wise,” Lucifer says carefully. “Nor even possible any more.”

A narrowing of Sam’s eyes indicates to the archangel that he should continue, but Lucifer shakes his head unhappily and turns away, back to the forest.

“Lucifer.”  
  
“You should eat, Sam. Your strength is mine, more or less.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Sam snaps. He reaches out to pull Lucifer round by the shoulder, then stops before his fingers can make contact. Pulling his arm away, he realises that he’s allowed his anger to get the better of him. He would never voluntarily touch the archangel. Lucifer has seen the movement and his eyes flick knowingly from Sam’s hand to his face. He holds his tongue though, for which Sam is grateful.

“Why is it not possible any more?”

Lucifer shakes his head, and blinks slowly, relaxing back into something that resembles amused tolerance, the look of someone indulging a friend’s tiresome insistence. “Because I am bound by your will now, Sam. Even were you to allow me to possess you, it would be very difficult for us to co-exist as archangel and true vessel. You are quite literally in command now, regardless of the circumstances or my nature.”

It’s not quite condescension, but it’s a hearkening back to the arrogance of the archangel Sam is used to, and a step back from the caution that at once infuriates and so unnerves him. Lucifer’s concern for his wellbeing is as grating as it ever has been, but seeing the archangel uncertain and wavering is wrong on a level Sam cannot quite put into words.

“All right, fine. I get it. What exactly is it you think we need to do?”

Sam doesn’t miss the shade of pleased satisfaction that colours the archangel’s expression, as Lucifer folds his arms and explains his plan.

  
  


*

  
  


“I’ve told them to leave us be for a few hours,” Sam says, kicking a rock away into the undergrowth that rings the clearing. There’s an overgrown wooden picnic bench off to one side in the shade of the trees and he’s left his rucksack there, along with the rest of his supplies. Here in the centre of the sunlit clearing he spreads his jacket on the ground with one hand while biting into the apple he holds in the other. Lucifer watches him settle, and then hands him a bottle of water which Sam takes with some surprise.

“Do they know what we’re doing?” the archangel asks.

The question pricks unease into Sam's skin for the remembered look on his brother's face. Stony cold disapproval and suspicion, despite everything they'd talked about earlier. “I told them we’re working on spell stuff.”

Lucifer nods thoughtfully, and then sits down opposite Sam, crossing his legs beneath him. He tilts his head to the side, regarding him. Sam forces himself not to fidget beneath the weight of the archangel’s attention, but the pressure of his gaze, and his proximity is hard to bear. Lucifer no longer bears the burns and ragged flesh that marked him in the weeks before Stull, although he wears the same vessel as he did back then. Sam wonders how that even works. It occurs to him suddenly to wonder if in bringing back Lucifer he’s somehow dragged Nick back too.

“How is it you look like that?” he asks, gesturing vaguely at Lucifer’s form.

The archangel glances down at himself briefly and then shrugs. “I wear the form you visualised during the ritual. I look like this because this is how you expect me to look.”

“Huh.” Sam takes a second to consider the implications of this. “And Nick…?”  
  
“Long gone.” Lucifer briefly flicks his gaze heavenwards. “Happily dreaming his little soul dreams upstairs.”

At least there’s that, Sam thinks. He takes time to finish his apple, finally feeling like his appetite is finally sated, and chases it with half the bottle of water. He can feel Lucifer’s eyes on him throughout, the archangel silent and watchful, curiously fascinated by him in some way Sam cannot quite fathom. Eventually, having run out of things to fill the time, he realises he can no longer put their purpose here off. 

“Does Dean know about your dreams?” 

Lucifer’s question takes Sam by surprise, and he stumbles over his answer. The obvious truth is that Sam has kept his dreams from Dean, wary of provoking both his brother’s anger and his suspicion. The guilt of it must show on his face, for Lucifer nods his understanding. “Ah...I take it big brother remains his usual controlling self?”

 _“Lucifer.”_

Sam’s tone is sharp and full of warning, and the archangel holds up his hands in a placatory gesture. 

“I meant no offence, Sam. I’m just trying to work out where we all stand on this.”

“Dean doesn’t know because I wasn’t even sure it meant anything. If it wasn’t just my imagination playing tricks on me.” 

“Do you often dream of eldritch horrors from the outer realms?” Lucifer asks with raised eyebrows and Sam gives him a hard look. 

“Everyone has bad dreams, they could have been nothing.”

“But you suspected that they were not, otherwise you would not have mentioned them to me the other night.”

Confounded by Lucifer’s logic and his own guilt, Sam just shakes his head and shrugs. “So tell me how we’re going to work it out. You said we could maybe get something from what I keep seeing, and also...do something to strengthen your being here?”

Lucifer straightens, placing his hands on his knees, and his expression turns thoughtful. “I’m going to guide you through recalling the dream, and try to help you notice things your waking mind may have pushed aside.”

“It sounds very…” Sam waves a hand in the air, searching for a term that’s not somehow disparaging. 

“It’s an ancient method of spiritual healing and exploration that your people have been using for thousands of years,” Lucifer informs him dryly. “It requires patience, calm, and trust in the one guiding you.”

“Right..." Sam replies dubiously. "The bond building, I get it.”

Lucifer does not reply, he simply regards Sam with calm indifference. To look at him, one would not guess that his continued existence on this plane rests squarely on his ability to gain Sam’s trust and acceptance. Sam supposes that millennia of existence as an all-powerful celestial being lends a certain level of self-confidence to a person, regardless of the situation. 

“Okay then...how do we do this?”

The guidance that Lucifer provides is much as Sam expects it to be. He sits in the centre of the sunlit clearing, Lucifer opposite him, and listens to the sound of the Devil’s voice. Overhead the trees whisper to themselves, and he can smell the fresh scent of last night’s storm still on the air. It’s an idyllic peace broken only by the presence of the monster that lounges across from him. It had taken Sam less courage than he’d thought it would to willingly walk out here alone with Lucifer. To sit now with his old enemy within striking distance and close his eyes to him feels as though he’s putting his neck on the executioner’s block. At least, it should.

As he sits and listens to the birds trill and the Devil lull him into relaxation with his slow, soothing voice, Sam Winchester reflects on the fact that something, somewhere deep inside his psyche, must be irreparably broken. He should be curled in a foetal position right about now, rocking backwards and forwards, and crying to himself considering his past history with the archangel. Instead, he sits in silence and lets Lucifer guide his thoughts back to his elusive dreams, and somehow he doesn’t break down. Somehow, he knows he’s going to be okay.

 _I’m going to hell,_ he thinks. And then _, Back to hell. All the way._

“Sam, concentrate.”

And so he does, and as he lets Lucifer lead his thoughts back to dreams of the creature he finds himself able to return to the visions with more certainty than he has previously experienced. Perhaps it’s the confidence with which Lucifer leads him, or the peacefulness of their surroundings, or simply just that this is the first time in weeks where he’s actually simply stopped to properly take the time, but-

The darkness is suffocating, and it presses in all around him. It’s cold, as though he stands in the middle of a winter snowfall, but the claustrophobic absence of light makes him think that he’s underground. He can feel his pulse spike, his body go rigid with surprised tension. A breath of cold, damp air touches his face and at the very edge of his hearing he catches the suggestion of a voice. It’s a curl of sound, there and then gone, but even the hint of it makes him recoil in dreadful apprehension. There is something awfully, terribly wrong about that voice. And then all at once, as is the way of dreams, he sees where he is. 

A dark tunnel stretches ahead of him, and from the itch between his shoulder blades it falls away far behind too. The walls are narrow and the ceiling low, sharp with broken rock and slick with something he doesn’t want to touch. It smells of cold and damp in here, and then suddenly, echoing from afar, he hears the mournful tolling of a single bell, reverberant and stark against the silence. Sam takes a single step towards the sound, and then stops as the darkness behind him coils in on itself in a sudden feeling of presence. He hears nothing but the bell, and when he turns there is only the empty tunnel stretching away into darkness. 

Even so, he knows when the light begins to turn what is coming for him. Weak silvery illumination bleeds into red, and when the rusted iron chains explode from the walls around him he is already expecting them. It makes the shock of their bite no less terrible for it though, and he’s scrambling madly backwards away from them almost before he’s registered their presence. Despite his flight, they wrap in barbed chains around his knees, yanking him sharply from his feet, and dragging him down the passage, away from the tolling of the bell. He scrabbles for purchase, his hands coming away bloody from the slick walls, his desperation voiced in a sharp, terrified cry-

“Sam!”

He opens his eyes to bright sunlight and the Devil’s blue eyes. Crying out, Sam scrambles backwards, desperate to get away. It takes him a moment to realise that his legs are free, that the chains are gone and there is clean, wet grass beneath his hands. Lucifer has frozen, hands raised palms towards him, not daring to reach for him.

“What the hell?” Sam gasps, the reality of trees and autumn sunlight breaking through his panic. His heart is hammering in his chest and adrenaline floods his system, making his breath come in short, choppy heaves.

“Sam, listen to me,” Lucifer says with calm insistence. “You’re safe, in the forest, near the cabin. You were exploring your vision, but it’s over now. You’re safe.”

Sam meets the Devil’s eyes and his fingers dig into the grass, pressing twigs and sharp leaves up into his palms. He fights for control of his body’s panic response as Lucifer calmly repeats himself, holding eye contact until he’s sure Sam is back in the present with him.

“Sam? Tell me where we are?” Lucifer asks, searching his expression.

“In the forest, doing the guided vision thing,” Sam says, closing his eyes momentarily. With deliberate effort he unclenches his grip and shakes loose the twigs that have dug into his skin. “It’s okay, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Across from him Lucifer leans back. His expression is guarded, his mouth a flat line, and when Sam looks at him, even with his heart beating madly in his chest, he can read the closed off, wary look on the angel's face. Very slowly, Lucifer reaches out with one hand and rests just his fingertips on the side of Sam’s leg. “Are you-”

Sam flinches at the touch, and turns the movement into an awkward scramble to his feet. His pulse has jumped unpleasantly at the unexpected contact, and he can feel adrenaline making his limbs shake. Lucifer has pulled back quickly, realising his mistake. He doesn’t follow as Sam puts some distance between them, moving back to the relative safety of the overgrown picnic bench. He sits down, pulls his rucksack over to himself, and then realises that he doesn’t want to be seated at all. He stands, then thinks how crazy, how out of control he’ll look if he starts to pace, and instead finds himself frozen, fighting the aftereffects of panic and the rising swell of anger in himself. 

Anger at what? he thinks. Anger at Lucifer, at his dream, at his own reaction to it. He stands, breathing heavily in the sunlight and tries to get himself under control.

Lucifer remains seated in the centre of the clearing. Sam thinks he must be watching him, but when finally he looks up he finds the Devil’s eyes downcast, his frown directed at the grass between his knees. He must feel Sam’s attention on him, for he looks up with one eyebrow raised in query. When Sam says nothing, Lucifer hesitates, then asks, “What did you see, Sam?”

Sam thinks of the vicious grip of black chains, and the blood that coated his hands as he struggled to escape, thick and full of meat-stink. He thinks of Lucifer’s laughter in the Pit and the touch of his hands, hard, and unshakeable and absolute in their cruelty.

“Nothing,” he rasps, and turning, walks away.


	8. In Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to try a new approach.

For the next five days the unseasonable warmth holds true. Despite their initial failure, Sam spends part of each day with Lucifer, sitting in the forest clearing allowing him to guide him back into his dreams in search of the elusive fragments of the creature’s presence. Dean and Bobby watch warily, only barely content to allow them so much time alone together. Dean complains that it’s not safe for them to be alone together, but Sam cannot focus with his brother’s eyes on him. There is no part of him that wants Dean to see his reaction to the visions, his struggle to control himself. He needs his brother to think of him as being in control, not barely able to keep it together. It’s bad enough that Lucifer has to see how much effect he still has on Sam.

Each day he walks resolutely down to the clearing, Lucifer padding along silently behind him. Each night is a mess of broken sleep and the whisper of shadows in the corner of his room. He wakes to the sounds of iron clinking and fingers scratching at the floorboards, there and then gone the moment he sits up. He has taken to sleeping in the chair with his gun in his hand, a fact he keeps from the others with great care. Throughout it all he finds himself exhausted, strung out and surviving on strong coffee. Dean has noticed, and so has Lucifer. In unlikely tandem, both of them hold their tongues.

The wind is stirring the leaves in a soft whisper and Sam is kneeling in the clearing searching for calm amongst their quiet voices. What he wants is sleep, deep and uninterrupted, and maybe an aspirin for the band of pain that’s slowly tightening around his forehead. The too-fast beat of his heart tells him that he’s overdone the coffee just a little too much already this morning. And then Lucifer says his name in that quiet, soft way of his, and Sam realises he must have been drowsing slightly.

“Sorry.”

The archangel is regarding him closely, eyes narrowed in thought. “Sam, I think we should try something different today.”

At Sam’s raised eyebrow Lucifer leans forward, one elbow resting on his drawn-up knee. “I know you won’t tell me what you’re seeing that’s throwing you out of the vision, but I think I’m right in saying it’s entirely unrelated to the vision itself?”

Sam doesn’t reply save for a thinning of his lips. He hasn’t told Lucifer of the hellish memories the dream inevitably twists into, and since the first failed outcome the archangel hasn’t asked again. 

“Whatever it is, it’s clearly a distraction. If you allow me to share the vision with you, then I can help you maintain your focus.”

“What do you mean, share?” Sam asks warily.

Lucifer shrugs lightly, his expression and already carefully offhand tone enough to warn Sam that he’s not going to like the answer. “I would go with you into the dream-”

“I will _not_ have you in my head again,” Sam says flatly.

The archangel pauses, drawing a breath as though he had fully anticipated this reaction. “I won’t be in your head, not like it used to be. It’ll be a shared dream, so I’ll be dreaming too.”

“I don’t see how that’s going to help.”

Lucifer eyes him warily, then appears to come to a decision. “You’re seeing visions of the Cage,” he says softly. “Things that are clearly a distraction, Sam, and nothing to do with your actual visions. If I’m there in the dream too, I can deflect that part of it. Keep you focussed.” 

“I won’t have you in my head,” Sam repeats.

“I won’t be. You will dream, I will dream. We’ll both share the same dreamscape, and the only person inside your head will be you, Sam.”

His head is hurting, that is what Sam Winchester is thinking right now. Lucifer’s proposal does nothing but make him feel even more exhausted than he already is; the idea of trusting the Devil to play around with his visions more directly than as a simple guided meditation not one that appeals on any level. But they need some kind of progress with this, some measure of success because time is passing and they have nothing to show for it. If the creature strikes again and they’re not ready for it because he’s failed to find clues that were readily available, Sam’s not sure how he’ll react.

His indecision must show on his face, for slowly Lucifer reaches out and very gently touches the hanging loop of the binding bracelet on Sam’s wrist with the tips of his fingers. “You’ll still be entirely in control.”

Sam considers the possibility of Lucifer seeing all the things that haunt his dreams, then snorts at his own foolishness. Why should he care? Hasn’t the Devil not only seen them already but been the one inflicting them in the first place? The thought of experiencing them all over again with Lucifer right there makes Sam shudder. But the thought of it doesn’t quite mesh up in his head. For a long, disorientating moment he experiences a strange feeling of dislocation, as though the Lucifer that sits watching him now doesn’t fit properly into the hell visions that torment him. It’s a bizarre, unsettling feeling, like a puzzle piece that looks like it should fit but somehow just...doesn’t. He realises, crazily, that he feels like he’s going to throw up.

Lucifer must catch something of the discomfort on his face, for he tilts his head in query and holds a cautious hand close to Sam’s shoulder, not touching, but ready if he should be needed. Sam swallows hard and shakes his head. “I think, I just. I didn’t sleep well,” he forces out, startled by his body’s reaction. 

Lucifer nods slowly and withdraws, caution still etched on his features. 

“We need some progress,” Sam says, swallowing against the tightness in his throat. When Lucifer doesn’t reply at once, he tries to smooth his features into something calmer. “I don’t want you in my head, and I won’t let you wander around in there.”

“I will not,” Lucifer says quietly.

“This isn’t agreement,” Sam snaps. He pauses, reining in his agitation. “How exactly is it you’d do it anyway?”

Lucifer doesn’t reply at first, clearly not trusting Sam’s composure. It takes a narrowing of Sam’s eyes before he folds his arms and shrugs. “I’d put us both into a dreaming state, and then I’d join our dreamscapes together and come find you. After that it would depend on how you were feeling.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we’ll need to see how it goes.”

There’s something else there behind the Devil’s words but Sam cannot work out what the emotion is. He suspects wariness rather than trickery, but a not insignificant part of him is still screaming at the very idea of being near his old tormentor at all. It’s been doing that for a long time now, and Sam’s more or less used to shutting it out. He looks away, into the trees, and wonders if he’s strong enough to do this. The sunlight makes everything deceptively cheerful, as though the world is blissfully unaware of the awful danger in which it’s once more found itself. Unaware, or uncaring. He thinks to himself: Strong enough to survive hell, strong enough to take the Devil by surprise the first time, strong enough to get this far. It would only be a little further. Story of their lives really, just hold on a little longer. 

“All right.”

It takes a second before Lucifer reacts. His lack of an immediate response tells Sam that his acquiescence has been faster than the Devil expected. Nonetheless, when he turns a stern, determined gaze on him, Lucifer nods and spreads his hands to indicate his approval.

“No time like the present then, Sam.”

  
  


*

  
  


Lucifer finds him in the darkness, and Sam knows him by the light he brings with him. At first he’s confused by the silvery luminescence cupped in the Devil’s hands, but when he steps closer to look he finds himself watching in wonder the slow and stately swirl of silver and white that plays across the Devil’s palms. It’s the colour of angels, of Heaven in its purest form, and it is deeply, achingly beautiful. 

“We need to go now, Sam. Time to remember that vision.”

Sam looks up at Lucifer, and suddenly recalls their purpose here. The archangel’s gaze is calm, patient, and if Sam had to describe it, he’d say it was indulgent too. There’s the idea of acceptance there, a complete lack of judgement, and he thinks _this is what an archangel should be._ In his dream state it doesn’t occur to him what else Lucifer can be.

“Show me what it is that you dream,” Lucifer prompts.

In the dream, Sam breathes deep and wonders how he’s supposed to do that. The last thing he wants is to move away from the archangel’s light, but Lucifer’s gaze is uncompromising, and finally he turns to face the darkness. He feels Lucifer behind him, the archangel’s light a cool and reassuring presence at his back. 

When he hears the bell toll he’s almost surprised. It cuts through the darkness and brings with it the scent of rain and flowers. A sweet, sickly smell fills the air and the dreaming shifts. Sam’s eyes refocus as the shadows gain form and curve around to form a tunnel of rock and gravel. The air feels humid and heavy with the scent of decay. It coats his tongue and fills his nose, and Sam puts a hand across his face to try and filter it out. The light around them is turning stark and unfriendly, unpleasant in a way that Lucifer’s own radiance is not. This dream light feels sick, as though somehow it too is decaying. 

Sam can feel himself beginning to shiver in dread, and he knows almost before the light starts to brighten that the creature is coming. The tunnel stretches off into the distance and in the growing light he can see that the walls run with moisture, beaded and slick on every surface. His eyes widen and he takes a step back, for he knows that what he sees is blood. Lucifer is at his shoulder and Sam bumps into his chest, startling himself. The archangel puts a steadying hand on his shoulder, but his eyes are fixed on the growing radiance at the end of the tunnel.

Sam turns back to look, feeling panic rising inside him. He remembers the insane twisting of reality that came the last time he got close to this thing, and there is no part of him that can bear it again. He makes to slide out from beneath Lucifer’s palm, but the Devil has him tight and he realises to his horror that he cannot move. 

“Hush,” Lucifer whispers to him. “A moment more, Sam.”

But he can’t, he simply cannot bear to feel the world curve away around him, to feel reality shift and bend in ways that drive fear through every part of his mind. He cannot take that terrible, relentless pressure on his being ever again, and he cries out in horror. The light becomes unbearably bright, complete in its terrifying dread, and Lucifer puts an arm around Sam’s chest to shield him, draws him close-

-and Sam wakes up covered in sweat and panting for breath on the bed in his room. Dean has hold of his shoulders and is staring down at him, eyes wide and worried. 

“Sammy, come on. Sammy!”

“This one’s awake too,” comes Bobby’s low drawl, and Sam looks sideways to see Lucifer next to him on the twin bed. The archangel blinks and turns on to his side, reaching with one hand for Sam. Dean blocks the movement with a snarl, but Lucifer only leans back when he’s certain there’s awareness back in Sam’s eyes.

“Dean, I- get off me, I’m okay! I’m okay, man.”

Despite his reassurances Dean takes another moment to make sure Sam’s fully awake before he withdraws, casting a withering glance at Lucifer. Sam sits up, running shaking hands through his hair and turns to the archangel. “Did you see anything?”

Lucifer sits up slowly, pulling his legs up and crossing them. It clearly puts them closer together than Dean would like, for the older Winchester makes an aborted movement towards him, but Sam is unconcerned by their proximity. His entire focus is on the results of their experiment.

Lucifer gives a slow shrug and at his expression Sam’s shoulders fall in defeat. “I saw enough to know some of the things that it’s _not_ ,” the archangel says, and then he shoots a swift look in Dean’s direction, giving Sam pause. Before they set this trial in motion Sam had told Bobby and his brother that he and Lucifer were going to attempt a dream-walk to allow Lucifer to see through Sam’s eyes - the closest to in person that they could get right now - exactly the damage the creature had wrought. Dean had suggested simply driving out to the town it had last hit, but at a ten hour journey away he’d been more inclined to relent when told there was a faster option. It makes Sam feel guilty for keeping the dreams from his brother, and deeply uneasy at Lucifer’s willingness to deceive him, but he files it away as something he’ll tell Dean when he’s sure it won’t make him freak out even more than he already is.

“Like what?” Dean demands.

Lucifer shrugs. “A whole host of other-dimensional beings we can cross off the list. And believe me, that’s a good thing. More importantly though, Sam, how do you feel?”

Sam blinks, and then shrugs. “I’m good. I mean, I’m fine - really.”

Dean looks between the pair of them, and off to one side Bobby folds his arms. “So did we get anything useful out of this at all?” Dean demands.

With a slow nod, and a satisfied expression, Lucifer sends a lazy glance in the older Winchester’s direction. “I’d say so. Any progress is good right now.”

The smile that lifts the corner of his mouth makes Sam laugh softly, and Dean scowl darkly.

  
  


*

Lucifer spends the rest of the day in quiet meditation, and Sam leaves him be, giving Dean a hand trawling the internet for any further sign of their creature. Before he retreats, the archangel gives them a further list of signs to look for - blighted landscapes and other more subtle things, like swarms of butterflies bleached of all colour, and flowers that bloom long out of season. They find nothing, and Bobby shakes his head before coaxing their stove to life and cooking them all a late evening dinner.

That night Sam dreams, and when he does it’s formless light, soothing and calm. He watches the slow swirl of silver and blue, letting himself drift. Slowly the play of light fades to darkness and Sam slips further into sleep, and finally dreams of nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your feedback and kudos on this fic, I've really appreciated them all. :] I'm kinda relieved to find so many people still enjoying a S5 Lucifer fic honestly!
> 
> Next chapter: input from the older Winchester. Hm.


	9. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A word from big brother.

It’s a two hour drive to the local town, and Dean cruises with the window down and the stereo cranked up. Early morning sunlight filters down between the trees that line the road and reflects off the chrome of the Impala. It’s a pleasant drive and the movement drains away some of the tension that’s been building the last few weeks. Where others exercise to work off stress, Dean drives, letting the road eat away at his anger. 

He reaches town in good time, and parks up outside the tiny general store. The whole place is little more than a single long central street, with a pair of eateries and the store that feeds them. Further up the road outside the nearest, two rigs have pulled up and stand still and silent. Their drivers are likely still enjoying a late breakfast, and Dean notes the plates on both of them before making his way around to the storefront. 

The interior is cool and dim, and he nods to the woman behind the counter as he picks up a basket. He can smell cigarette smoke and air freshener, and the cold-air waft of the chiller cabinets. Bobby’s shopping list is still going round in his head, even if the irritation in the old man’s voice has faded. Milk, bread, meat,  _ get out from under my feet, boy, you’re wearing a goddamned hole in the floor with all that pacing. _

Dean piles his basket high, and wonders if he should pick up more fruit for his brother. Sam’s a health freak if given half an opportunity, and normally Dean wouldn’t condone that type of behaviour - life’s too damned short - but hell, the ritual, the Devil, it all adds up. Sam’s been acting weird again, and Dean’s noticed. Not the shifty-eyed “I’ve done something you won’t like” hang-dog expression he’s worn like a favourite jacket these last few years, but something deeper. Something that speaks of tiredness and something deeply, fundamentally changed. Dean’s seen it, he knows it, and it unnerves him.

The woman behind the counter has grey hair scraped tightly back, and dark, weather-beaten skin. She rings up his items without a word and somewhat to his own surprise Dean finds himself glad. It’s been over a week since he spoke to anyone outside of his brother, Bobby, and the Devil, and although he’d driven out here with the intention of shaking off his growing cabin fever, now he’s faced with another human being he can’t bring himself to break the silence. He watches as she bags his items up, and wonders, not for the first time, what people like him are supposed to say to people like her. 

Once, Dean would have known the answer to that question. Or at the very least he’d have known how to keep someone from suspecting the reality of what’s going on. It’s what his family does, after all: Kill monsters, save people. He thinks suddenly of Lucifer’s silhouette in the early hours of the morning, standing outlined against the flicker of lightning from outside. He remembers the gleam of his eyes in the darkness, liquid and cold, and how he hadn’t needed to see the archangel’s face to know that he’d been smiling. There in the middle of that backwater Idaho town Dean feels a rush of fury so bright and strong he has to close his eyes against it. When he opens them the woman is watching him, and he realises that she’s waiting for payment. The smile he gives her as he hands the money over is as false as the one that curved Lucifer’s lips that night. 

When he emerges into the sunlight the Devil’s smirk is a blade against his thoughts and the rage of it still clings to his muscles. He looks up into the late autumn sunlight and tries to let the warmth soothe him. Everything he is rails against what they’re doing here. He’s the older brother, the head of this family, small as it is, and a hunter. It’s Dean’s job to protect his brother, stop him from doing all the stupid things he lets himself get caught up in. He’s supposed to be the protector, the one that knows better, the one with whom the buck stops. And yet here they are, with Satan himself living in their home. 

Dean remembers Lucifer from the days of Armageddon; the beartrap grip of the archangel’s fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt, and the awesome power behind the fist he was pounding into Dean’s face. Demonic that strength had been, breath-taking. Archangelic. The arrogant sneer, the disgust for everything good in the world. Dean can feel his hatred for the archangel’s disdain burning him up inside and making his muscles ache with it. He vows again, another repetition in the endless cycle of promises, that Lucifer will burn before he has his way. Sam will be protected and Heaven can go screw itself. 

He’s still mulling the promise over as he puts the shopping in the car, thinking ahead with tired resignation to the stubbornness he’s going to get from Sam when he inevitably has to step in and put a stop to all this bullshit. Stubbornness, attitude, it’s going to be a fight - that he knows from long experience. But if Sam can’t see clearly enough to do what’s right, through tiredness, or pain, or just plain being himself, then Dean will be ready to step in, just as he always has been. 

As he pulls back out on to the main street he sees that the truckers have come out of the diner. They stand chatting next to the biggest of the two rigs, their eyes on him as his movement draws their attention. They’re older men, road-worn and relaxed, the decades of living showing in the easy slouch of their shoulders and the curve of their stomachs. Dean nods to them as he passes, and turns the Impala back towards the forest.

*

When Dean gets back Lucifer and Sam are playing chess. 

He catches sight of them through the dusty kitchen window, sitting engrossed in their game, one either side of a rickety camp table they’ve dug out from somewhere. Sam is frowning down at the pieces, his features drawn into a scowl of concentration. He looks tired, and slightly on edge, even if his attention is fully taken up by the board. Dean can’t tell from here who’s winning, or what the state of play is, but he can see Lucifer taking advantage of Sam’s distraction to regard his little brother with nothing short of a predator’s intensity. Dean feels his lip curl up in disgust, and with movements made sharp by anger he pushes open the backdoor and steps outside.

Sam jumps and moves to rise, but the bag of food Dean drops in his lap keeps him in place. Dean moves up to stand next to him, arms folded, looking down on Lucifer with as much disdain he can put into his stare. Lucifer, for his part, settles back comfortably and smiles blissfully up at him. 

“You know, for something that’s supposed to be a high and mighty first of the first celestial being, you really are a-”

“Dean, Sam! You boys out there?”

Dean’s narrow-eyed accusation is cut off by Bobby’s shout, and they both look up as the porch door opens. The old hunter glances between them, ignores the atmosphere and growls, “I need some help up on the roof. One of you boys come and help me.”

Sam stands up, hurriedly transferring the bag of food from his lap to the tabletop. “I will, Bobby, I need a break to clear my head.”

Dean frowns as his brother slides past him, following Bobby back inside. It occurs to him that he shouldn’t be wanting to stop his brother from getting time away from the feathered freak here, but at the same time no-one’s told him of any progress yet. “Hang on,” he says, following them both, and leaving the Devil sat on the porch staring in after them. “What about whatever the hell it is you were doing out there? What’s the news on progress?”

Sam looks briefly uncomfortable and the expression sets Dean’s teeth on edge. He knows that look. It means there’s been no progress at all. 

“We’re trying to work some things out,” Sam says, and Dean can see him trying to avoid a lengthy explanation. That’s always a bad sign with Sam, it means there’s something going on that he won’t tell Dean about, something Dean probably needs to know. “Ways of making his spell more robust.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “More ro- by playing _chess?”_

Sam shrugs and nods. “Yeah, it’ll help us work together more smoothly. So the spell is stronger.”

Dean gets the theory, but it doesn’t mean he likes it. He’s about to question the whole set-up when Bobby intercedes. “Sam, come on. We haven’t got all day, boy.”

“I can do it, Bobby,” Dean cuts him off, but the old hunter gives him a glare. Dean double-takes, and in that time Sam is past him and walking towards the back of the cabin. Bobby gives him a look that says  _ stay here, _ and Dean settles back with a frown. “Guess I’ll babysit then.”

The front door of the cabin closes behind his brother and Bobby, and Dean is left alone. The speed of his brother's retreat, the eagerness of it, doesn't sit right with him. Sam can be strangely protective of his time with Lucifer, in a way that Dean doesn't quite understand, and for him to throw up his hands and run for cover so quickly suggests that the tension between him and the archangel has reached a point where a time out is required. For a moment Dean stands and considers that, wondering what else is going on beneath his brother's thin façade of coping. The shelter of the porch and the reaching branches of the surrounding trees make the cabin’s kitchen murky even in the midday sun, and the smell of damp still pervades the air, not yet fully cleared out by their presence. It’s a good day to be outside. Dean glances out of the kitchen window and sees Lucifer still leaning over the chessboard. With a deep, heartfelt sigh, he goes outside to piss off the Devil.

The day is cool, and Dean thinks he can smell the promise of a cold night. He crosses to the porch’s railing and leans straight-armed on its dubious support. After a moment he hears the scrape of metal on wood and then the weight of Lucifer’s presence is there at his side. The archangel stands with arms folded, looking out at the trees, and Dean can hear the slightest scrape and rasp of his breath. He’s not used to hearing angels breathe, not unless there’s something wrong with them. He looks sideways at Lucifer, gauging his condition.

“What’s up with you?”

The moment he says it he’s reminded of Sam asking nearly the same question immediately after they’d brought the Devil back.  _ He look off to you? _ Something in the way he holds himself, in the way he holds himself back.

“Where would you like me to start, Dean?” Lucifer drawls.

“We can skip the bit where you’re a psychotic murdering bastard, and go straight to why the hell you’re acting weird,” Dean snaps. 

Lucifer smiles, but the expression doesn’t touch his eyes. He keeps his gaze on the distant trees, an evasion intended to irritate Dean, or simply in contemplation it’s hard to tell. “Don’t you ever get bored of singing the same old tune, Dean?”

“You’d know, asshole. You’re the one that held on to your teenage angst for thousands of years.”

Lucifer looks sideways at him then, seemingly somewhere between amusement and irritation. “Dean,” he says softly. “I thought we were making progress.”

“Yeah, about that,” Dean’s tone is flat and unimpressed. “What exactly is it you’re doing with my brother? What is all this crap with the chess and the getting back to nature trips you’re taking?”

The archangel hums out a breath, one of those deliberate acts of mimicry Dean knows they sometimes use to make themselves appear more human, and shrugs. “Very simple, Dean. If you want that monster put back in its box, and you want it done without baby brother being driven insane in the process, then he and I need to learn to sing in harmony, so to speak. Without his say so, without his  _ enthusiastic consent,  _ the spell will fail. No matter how much you hate this, think of it as being all for the greater good.”

Dean’s not stupid, and he knows when he’s being baited. So yes, sometimes he can’t help himself and he bites hard, but he’s also been dealing with archangelic bullshit for long enough to recognise when one of them is deliberately trying to wind him up. Lucifer’s choice of words is meant to set him off, intended to make him focus on the idea of vessels, to tie him up in his own fear. That’s how Heaven works, he knows that now, and he won’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Even so, he hesitates. Not because he thinks this has anything to do with Lucifer being able to convince Sam to let him back in, but because threaded in amongst the archangel’s words there’s going to be the truth, the real truth of the matter. Long experience has taught him that angels, even the bad ones, tend not to lie. They just leave the whole truth out and let everyone else fill in the blanks, usually poorly.

“Explain”, he says flatly.

Lucifer eyes him for a long moment, then says suddenly, “The spell your brother cast, it binds me to him, but it also binds him to me. His health affects mine. If his concentration is off, so is mine. There’s only so much I can compensate for. Doing all these 'getting back to nature' exercises, they’re not just games, Dean, they serve a purpose.”

Dean’s eyes are narrowed as he feels around for the catch. There’s always a catch in these things. “If you die, does he die?”

Lucifer shifts, head tilted, and Dean thinks maybe he’s scored one in the archangel’s books for not taking the obvious bait. “I don’t die so easily, Dean Winchester,” he says softly. “But to answer your question, no. Sam’s life force is not tied to mine. His energy is tied to the spell, and he can choose to release that at any point.” 

“Huh,” is all Dean says. Internally, his mind is racing. What Lucifer says makes sense in a weird, hippy, everything-tied-to-everything-else type way. Certainly he’s seen enough magic to know that there’s usually some kind of balance, some kind of feedback between caster, spell, and object of said spell. He doesn’t claim to understand that kind of thing, certainly not in the same way Sam does, but then magic and spells aren’t really Dean’s speciality - that’s always been his brother’s area. 

“So the spell can’t kill him?”

There’s a pause, and then, “No.”

It seems to Dean that once upon a time the Devil would have had a different reply to that. He might not have answered, or he might have replied with a question of his own.  _ Do you want to take that risk, Dean? _ That sort of thing. Just the type of manipulative crap Heaven is always trying to pull with them. But not this, whatever this is. This out of character compliance, this strange and even creepier than normal facsimile of caring. 

“You’re different,” he says, and Lucifer looks at him sharply. The archangel aborts the movement at once, but Dean catches it, and wonders. So he’s right then. Something’s off.

“We’ve all been through trying times, Dean.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

Lucifer draws in a long, slow breath, and for a second it seems as though he’s going to respond in kind, but once again Dean watches the Devil rein himself in. It’s a strangely unsettling thing to watch such an arrogant, dangerous creature picking its words so carefully. It puts Dean’s teeth right on edge.

“Out with it.”

Lucifer looks at him then, and for a long moment they lock gazes. Dean remembers doing something close to this once before, a long time ago in a dusty cemetery at the end of the world. The face is different but the creature looking out from behind the eyes is the same. But this time his brother is safe, Sam is fine and they're in control. There's no Fate here, no uncaring will of Heaven. Just him and his brother, against this monster on a leash. Somehow that doesn’t sound as different as he wants it to.

“Where  _ is _ Castiel, Dean?” 

Lucifer’s abrupt change of topic takes him completely by surprise, and he stumbles his answer. “What?”

“Your friend, the angel. The 'seraph,' or...however you wish to call him. He’s had quite the adventure, so Sam tells me. Quite the rebel.”

“Oh no you don’t, buddy. Leave Cas out of this,” Dean is shaking his head, one hand raised to cut the archangel off. When Lucifer moves, taking a step in closer, head tilted and hands now stuffed deep into his pockets, Dean stiffens warily. 

“I’m not assigning blame, Dean. You can leave that to my siblings upstairs. If you want judgement, go pray to them, they really get off on that sort of thing. I’m asking as an ally, Dean. I won’t insult either of us by saying 'friend,' but I will say this to you. Your distraction isn’t helping Sam, and I need Sam to concentrate. So, if there’s anything I can do to help bring back your boyfriend, you let me know.”

Dean isn’t sure what reaction the archangel is hoping for. If it’s shock he’s not quite managed it. If it’s hope then he’s failed. All Dean has in him these days is anger and a sense of betrayal no amount of whiskey will shift. He doesn’t back away when Lucifer invades his personal space, and the tension flooding him turns his face cold and distant. He sees Lucifer draw up, senses something shift in the angel’s gaze, hesitation or fear of miscalculation, he’s not sure. “If Cas wanted to come back, he’d already be here.” 

There’s a long pause, and then slowly Lucifer leans away. Dean’s not sure what the expression on the archangel’s face means, but he’s not smiling that soft, predatory smile any more. His expression is as cold as Dean’s own, but his eyes are dark and burning with some emotion Dean can’t fully read. Anger perhaps, but not, he thinks, directed entirely at him. Once again, something doesn’t quite make sense. 

“So simple,” the angel says. Dean frowns, and when Lucifer speaks again the familiar expression of smug superiority is back on his features. “So predictable, Dean. You really are a perfect match.”

As angry as he is with Castiel, Dean has had quite enough of the Devil’s bullshit now. If there’s anyone on the entire planet less qualified to mock Castiel for his actions then it has to be Lucifer. Mockery of his own choices Dean can take, but Castiel is off limits. “You know what, you feathered freak? I really don’t care what you think. Or what you think you can offer me. I’m not here to take bribes from you, and you’re not getting anything from me. You’ll do what we called you here to do, and then you’re going right back to where you belong.”

“Oh, Dean,” Lucifer murmurs. “You have no idea what I’m here for.”

“Oh, I think I do, buddy,” Dean replies. “And if you think I’ll take my eyes off you for a second, you’re way off course. That spell is a noose round your neck, and the minute you try and slip it it’s going to pull tight. So just you bear that in mind next time you try any games with me.” 

Lucifer’s smile is as arctic as the northern winter winds, and just as deadly. For a second Dean thinks the archangel might push the issue, but where once Dean may have hesitated before the power of such a creature, now he simply stares into the angel’s eyes and dares him to do something. Dean Winchester has been to hell and back and overthrown the might of gods and angels alike. He finds, to his satisfaction, that he no longer cares what this failure of a celestial being thinks it can do.

“A perfect match,” Lucifer whispers again.

Dean shakes his head in disgust. “Just make sure you kill this thing,” he growls, and after a moment’s pause to cement his meaning in the angel’s mind, turns to head back into the cabin, leaving the Devil standing alone on the porch. 

It’s only much later, long after Sam has come down from helping Bobby on the roof, that it occurs to Dean that Lucifer may not have been referring to Castiel at all. He plays back the conversation in his mind, and wonders what it is the archangel sees when he looks at him. If he sees a jumped-up mortal, an enemy that somehow took him by surprise and stole his greatest victory from him, or if he sees an older brother, strict and inflexible. Immoveable in his judgement. If, when Lucifer looks at him, mortal flesh or not, he still sees Michael looking back.

The thought of it makes Dean shudder, and for the rest of the day he keeps his distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do enjoy Lucifer and Dean striking sparks off each other. It is _far_ more fun to write than it ought to be.


	10. Trouble In Paradise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unwelcome visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that later seasons will most likely have invalidated a lot of the Leviathan lore in this fic, but we're pretending they don't exist. :]
> 
> 2 chapters (9&10) at once again today, because I have time.

Sam's fingers hover over the bishop, and his eyes flick up to meet Lucifer's. The archangel is watching him, and despite the curve of knuckles Lucifer has pressed against his lips, Sam can still see the smile on his mouth. The Devil's gaze is daring him into action, and Sam can read the trap in it. He knows the way Lucifer's mind works enough to be certain that his choice is correct and Lucifer's smirk is simply meant to put him off. He's confident of it.

On the other side of the room, Dean curses and reaches out for the third time to reset their internet connection. Scowling and glum, he's been prowling the farthest edges of Sam's personal space for the entire day, and Sam can't work out if it's because of something he's done or Lucifer's done, or both of them have done at once. Knowing Dean Sam suspects it's somehow his fault regardless. He pushes the thought aside as unnecessarily snide, and reaches for the calm he needs to catch the Devil out.

The crack of a rifle firing sounds off in the distance, and for a second everyone pauses. Dean meets Sam's eyes, and Lucifer frowns idly. Bobby is out in the forest gathering wood to restock the cabin for future visits, and they know he usually takes his gun on the off-chance of spotting game. If he’s bagged something decent then maybe dinner will be interesting. When they hear the old man yell, both of them are on their feet in an instant and heading to the door.

It's Dean that spots him first. The day has passed on into early evening, and in the haze of twilight Bobby is a pale figure staggering down the dirt track towards them. He's limping badly, one hand pressed into his side, and in the failing light his face is drawn and determined. Coming up behind him, her stride unhurried, is a middle-aged woman. She’s dressed in pale greens and browns, and even from this distance they can see the black-blooded wound on her shirt. 

The pair of them draw up short on the porch, staring in horror. “Bobby!” Dean calls out. 

Sam gasps, “Leviathan.”

“Get the Borax!” Dean snaps and sets off at a run, already drawing his .45. Sam hesitates for just a second, knowing that his brother is fast, but that it’s too far, there’s too much ground to cover and if the Leviathan decides to it can reach Bobby before either of them have a chance to do anything more than watch the old hunter die. He sees the Leviathan begin to pick up its pace even as Dean sprints, footsteps thudding in the dirt. Sam hesitates, measuring the odds, and Dean runs, and although he is fast, Lucifer is so much faster than all of them.

There’s a brief shadow at Sam’s shoulder and a soft, angry hum of disgust that reminds him that they’re not alone, that they do have a hidden ace, and then the archangel is through the door and past him. It’s possible that he runs, or maybe he flies, Sam cannot be sure that his human eyes haven’t simply missed the movement. All he sees is Lucifer flicker past him in black and shadow and then suddenly the archangel is two paces away from the Leviathan and already reaching for its neck with one hand. In his other there’s a blossom of light, silver like a viper’s strike and golden as the lining of Heaven, and then the Leviathan is lifted from the ground by his strength as he stabs it through the gut with his archangel blade.

The creature dies in horrified surprise and a blue-white explosion of flames that burns it up from the inside out. It’s over in less than a handful of seconds, ash drifting on the wind as Lucifer lets his sword arm fall, turning to scan the forest. Bobby goes to his knees on the road, still clutching at his side, and then the rifle clatters from his hands and he keels over into the dirt. Dean is at his side a heartbeat or two later, Sam already running to catch up. 

“Bobby!” Dean says, gripping the old hunter and turning him over onto his back. “What happened? Where’d it get you?”

There’s blood oozing from between the hunter’s clutching fingers, far more visible now they’re up close to him, making the dark material of his jacket shine with it. Dean presses on the wound, eyes going desperately between Bobby’s face and the blood now spilling between both their fingers. Sam arrives and he sees at once that the wound is more than either of them can patch up with even a hunter’s first aid kit. 

Lucifer is looking around at the forest, his eyes scanning their surroundings. His expression is mild annoyance, the gleaming angel blade in his hands catching the last light of the day and burning with brilliance. “Any more of them?” he asks, lifting a lazy sneer at the deepening shadows.

“Lucifer,” Sam snaps, and the archangel turns to raise a curious eyebrow at him. Sam gives him such a look of disbelief that the archangel draws back a little, giving a tiny shrug of confused query. 

Sam glares pointedly down at Bobby, gasping and spitting blood on the floor, Dean’s hand bloody on his shoulder. “Heal him.”

Only then does the archangel seem to notice the hunter bleeding out in the dirt. For just a second an expression of disgust flits across his features, and Sam feels a cold shock of outrage sheet through him. He forgets, oh he forgets just how deeply the archangel’s misanthropy runs. The archangel looks from Bobby to Sam, and then aborts whatever response he was intending to make when he catches the look on Sam’s face. Instead he gives a slow dip of his chin, running the tip of his tongue across his lower lip in an obvious and unwilling act of capitulation. 

“Now,” Sam stresses coldly. 

The chains of the summoning are still tight on Lucifer, and he goes down on one knee, head tilted to examine Bobby. Dean looks from the angel to Sam in poorly concealed panic, and the desperation on his brother’s face makes Sam’s hands curl into fists. Kneeling there in the dirt, Lucifer shivers once, then reaches for the wound on the old hunter’s flank. Dean snatches his hands back in expectation and presses instead on Bobby’s shoulder’s as the whites of the old man’s eyes betray both his pain and his fear of the creature leaning over him.

To his shock Sam feels it when Lucifer heals Bobby. It’s a dragging deep inside him like a rushing outwards of heat that leaves him cold somewhere at the very core of himself. He stiffens against the sensation, pulling back instinctively, and Lucifer makes an inarticulate noise of discomfort. The angel bows his head and frowns, and with sudden insight Sam realises that if he wants Lucifer to do this, he’s going to have to give something to allow it. Carefully, warily, he stops resisting, just enough that the flow of power becomes a small stream, enough that Lucifer’s shoulder’s loosen and light blooms beneath the angel’s fingertips.

Bobby gasps, and then the chalkiness of his skin warms back to a healthy pink, the vicious tear in his jacket knitting itself back together just as the flesh beneath does, spilled blood ceasing to even exist. 

“Bobby,” Dean says, grip still tight on the other hunter’s shoulder.

“I’m alright, boy,” Bobby replies, but his eyes are still filled with the adrenaline-shock rush of near death, and his breathing is laboured. “I’m alright.”

Lucifer leans back to regard his handiwork with a critical eye, then pushes himself to his feet. He straightens and turns to Sam, and his expression is close upon the edges of sardonic. “Voilà,” he says quietly, with a tiny flourish of his hands.

Sam narrows his eyes at the archangel and doesn’t miss the calculating look in Lucifer’s eye. It’s there for just a fraction of a second, and perhaps only someone as familiar with the angel as Sam would have caught it. He’s not entirely certain what it means.

Dean is pulling Bobby to his feet, and the pair of them are turning to look towards what remains of the dead Leviathan. There’s a scattering of ash in the dirt that looks like the leftovers of someone’s campfire, and Dean eyes Lucifer sideways, expression grim and assessing. 

“Didn’t think anything could kill those things,” he says gruffly. “Even angels.”

Lucifer gives him a slow smile, and shakes his head. “There’s a lot you don’t know about angels, Dean Winchester.”

Before his brother can reply, Sam steps in to put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. He can still feel his heart pounding from reaction, and only the solid feel of the old man’s arm beneath his grip can really confirm to him that they’ve gotten away with this. “Bobby, what happened?”

Bobby nods towards the trees. “She came out of the forest, didn’t hear a truck. Didn’t even hear her till she was right on top of me, let alone realise what she was. It was the damned smile gave it away.” 

The old man shivers and Sam can feel the tension in him even now. He lets his hand drop, and looks out, following his gaze at the darkness gathering beneath the trees. Lucifer is still beside them, but his attention is focused on Bobby. 

“Alone?” he asks, and the note of tension in his voice makes Sam cast a glance at him.

“Yeah, far as I could see. Didn’t see anyone else, or hear them.”

“Park Ranger from the uniform,” Dean comments. “There’s a ranger station twenty miles west of here, she’ll have come from there.”

“But why here?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs. “Maybe they patrol this route, maybe it’s bad luck.”

“No-one’s supposed to drop in on this place,” Bobby says, shaking his head. “The guys I got it from said there’s an agreement with the local rangers that it doesn’t need watching.”

“And yet, here we are,” Lucifer says smoothly. “It knew there was something here, otherwise it wouldn’t have expended the energy getting out here to look.”

“You think we’ve been made?” Sam asks, concern creasing his brow. “How?”

The archangel shrugs. “You tell me.”

“I’m heading up to the main road,” Dean says, turning back towards the cabin. “See if there’s a truck or if she just walked straight out of the goddamn forest.”

Something about the idea of that makes Sam shiver, and as Bobby turns to follow Dean, the pair of them talking about fetching the borax shells, he feels Lucifer’s hand on his shoulder, holding him back. The contact makes Sam jump, but as he turns the archangel’s hand slips away. 

“What?”

“Just a moment,” Lucifer says, letting the other two put some distance between them. Then he returns his attention to Sam. “Sam, these creatures cannot be allowed to find me here. Not like this.”

Sam’s brows draw down in a frown and he shakes his head in curt query. The archangel shifts, and the movement is uncomfortable, wary. 

“Why? You embarrassed to be seen like this? With us? Being bound here?” Sam’s words are cut through with sarcasm, and for just a moment there’s a flicker of something like the old Lucifer in the archangel’s eyes. The deadly note of warning that precedes one of his more traumatic meltdowns. It’s there and then gone in an instant, but the sight of it still sends a rush of adrenaline through Sam’s body. Pride. This creature is pure, condensed pride and baiting him is a mistake. But then he lifts his chin against the Devil’s stare, and returns it in kind. Things have changed since the bad old days of Armageddon, since Sam had to take care not to set this monster off. 

“Because if they sense that I am weakened in any way, and word of that gets back to their leader, they will all come for me, Sam. And they’ll come for you too, and your brother, and Bobby. Now, I’m strong, Sam, and I will do whatever it takes to protect you, but even I have to look at those odds - and our situation here, the state of this bond between the two of us - and think to myself that it doesn’t look good.”

Lucifer’s voice is soft, his words low and considered, like he’s imparting a secret to the closest of friends. Steel and honey, trust and threat, all mixed up into one, and it sends a shiver of apprehension up Sam’s spine. The bang of the cabin door announces Dean’s re-emergence, and he hears his brother call out to him angrily. He should be grabbing a gun too and heading out along with them to scout the perimeter, not standing here like a fool letting the Devil dig his claws in. 

“We’ll talk about this later,” he says stiffly, and is surprised by the look of open frustration in Lucifer’s eyes. It’s not often the archangel allows his true feelings to show so plainly, and for just a second Sam thinks he’s going to reach out and hold him in place. But he doesn’t. The archangel leans back out of his personal space with a slow nod, and Sam turns on his heel, jogging back to the cabin to re-join his brother.

  
  


*

  
  


They find the ranger’s truck parked on the corner where the top of the dirt track joins the road above. The track that leads down to their hidden cabin isn’t obvious, but there is a small wooden sign, weather-worn but still legible, standing propped up on a rock that marks the turn off. It has a rudimentary carving of an eagle on it along with the family name of the people that had once owned the place, and it’d been the mark by which the three of them had originally found their way here. 

Dean pulls a map from the front passenger seat of the vehicle, scanning the folded up sides, and then tosses it back down into the footwell, glaring out at the darkness. The forest is cold with the setting of the sun and alive with the soft voice of the wind through the branches and the ever-constant hum of insects. Sam is somewhere off in the trees, patrolling with shotgun and archangel at his side, and Dean pities anything they find that tries to have a go at either of them. 

“Radio’s dead,” Bobby says, setting the microphone back into its holder. 

Dean nods down at the discarded map. “It was heading into town by the look of it,” he says. “Following the road. Must have seen the sign, came to see if anyone was home.”

Bobby grimaces and sighs. “Lucky it found us before it got any further.”

Dean slams the truck door closed with more force than is strictly necessary. “How the hell did it get all the way out here?”

Bobby shrugs. “They’re in the water supply. Who knows how far they’ve gotten?”

“Damn it,” Dean curses. They’d been so careful, that was the whole point of coming all the way out here. Somewhere far off the beaten track that still allowed them the capacity to check in on all the vital feeds. Even with that proviso it shouldn’t have been so easy to find them. “All right. All right, we need to keep our eyes open. If we’re lucky it was riding alone.”

“When are we ever that lucky, boy?” Bobby asks. 

Dean gives him a grim look and shakes his head. More likely this will be just the start. They’ll have to move on, ready or not, get on the network and find somewhere else to hole up. The thought of taking Lucifer anywhere near civilisation sends a cold chill all the way through Dean’s body. But they need him. Today alone has been indication enough of that, as much as it galls Dean to admit it.

“At least that damned archangel has started earning his keep,” the old hunter says.

Dean eyes Bobby sideways, uncertain of what lies beneath the other man’s words. Being healed by an archangel is a headrush like no other, both wildly exhilarating and like being punched in the gut at the same time. No archangel Dean’s ever met has been gentle about it, hell even Castiel can get overenthusiastic sometimes. He cuts that thought off before it can go anywhere and pulls his mind back to Bobby. Bobby who is only here right now because of the things that Lucifer can do. Bobby who has no reason to feel thankful to Lucifer for anything. 

“You, uh. You okay?” he asks tentatively.

Bobby throws him a reproachful look, but it lacks the force of his usual withering glares. There’s something fragile there beneath the surface, something that tells Dean the old man’s not quite gotten his feet back under him properly yet. 

“At least we’ve got something that’ll kill ‘em now for sure,” Bobby replies.

“Yeah,” Dean mutters. “About that.”

“Gift horse,” Bobby says firmly. “Don’t go poking around in its mouth, in case the damned thing starts biting.”

“He bites any of us,” Dean replies with sudden clarity. “He’s going to damn well regret it.”

They share a look of mingled determination and grim apprehension, then Dean nods out towards the forest. 

“Let’s call them in and get this truck out of sight.”

The keys are still in the truck’s ignition, and while Bobby moves it further down the track and out of sight, Dean sets off in search of his brother and the archangel.

  
  


*

  
  


Sam is cutting an apple up and tossing it into a bowl in the kitchen when Lucifer finds him. Dean and Bobby are out on the porch sitting silent and watchful, one either side of the house as they stand sentinel in the darkness. So far there’s been no further signs of life or anything imitating it, and Lucifer himself has declared the surrounding area free of what he calls ‘infection.’ Still, no-one’s sitting easy, all of them tense and waiting on the predictability of their luck to turn bad. 

Sam feels him arrive before he hears him, and he thinks it’s only because of the sharpness in how he turns his head that Lucifer remembers to let his footsteps make any sound. The archangel comes to stand at the other side of the kitchen table, fingertips trailing lightly over the back of one chair. He’s silent, wearing that thoughtful, intense expression he has when he’s trying to work out how best to get Sam to do what he wants. 

That’s not fair, Sam thinks to himself, and deliberately turns his back on the angel to finish what he’s doing. Why am I so angry with him?

Despite what Lucifer had done earlier on, taking care of the Leviathan, and more importantly stopping Bobby from bleeding out in the dirt, there’s a steely roil of fury in the pit of Sam’s stomach, making his muscles hurt with the tension of it. And for all that he recognises the clench of anger Sam cannot for the life of him work out what’s set it off. Of course, it could all simply boil down to the unrelenting trauma of having his personal torturer present at his side nearly every moment of the day, but something about that doesn’t sit quite right. 

“Sam,” Lucifer says quietly.

Sam ignores him. It’s obvious that he’s heard the angel, but if Lucifer wants to make another attempt at getting under his skin then Sam’s going to at least finish prepping his fruit salad for when he’s done with it. He hears Lucifer breathe out what might be a soft sigh.

“Sam,” the angel continues softly. “You and I, this…arrangement we have. If it is to continue, we’re going to have to be more...more fluid in how we work, if we’re going to work together. There’s going to have to be a little bit of give and take, do you understand?”

Sam can see the archangel’s reflection in the dark surface of the kitchen window. They have the storm shutters closed outside to keep the light from shining like a beacon in the night, but no-one’s drawn the thin drapes in here and the glass reflects back the inside of the kitchen as clear as any mirror. Lucifer’s looking at him with cautious eyes, and the expression on his face says that he’s trying his best to choose words that won’t instantly spook the man that used to be his vessel. It’s really not working. 

“We are working together,” Sam replies shortly.

Lucifer hums a clipped sound of disagreement and shakes his head once. “We’re not, Sam. I had to beg you for the power to keep your friend from Death’s embrace, a request that you made directly to me.”

“That was hardly begging,” Sam scoffs, and Lucifer draws in a slow breath.

“Is that what you think? Hm.” 

Sam watches the archangel’s reflection as Lucifer shakes his head, wrapping long fingers around the back of the kitchen chair. He looks up at Sam and meets his eyes in the reflection of the kitchen window. 

“I can’t do this without you, Sam.”

Sam almost bites his tongue clean through. The words remind him of another time, another life, one where the Devil said much the same thing but with a meaning so much more devastating. Lucifer sees him flinch and draws back with a narrowing of his eyes. Something about the movement tells Sam that, despite it all, he really hadn’t intended his words to have the effect they did. It still leaves him trembling with something that might be fear or rage or some strange, confused version of both. He sets the peeling knife down on the cutting board with a sharp clack and leans both his hands on the counter, taking a long, steadying breath before looking up and catching the angel’s eye in the window.

“You had no problem killing that Leviathan,” he replies.

Lucifer’s mouth twitches, and for a moment Sam thinks he’s readying another overwrought declaration of his archangelic nature, but then he seems to think better of it. 

“That’s one thing I can do,” Lucifer says instead. “I can still burn out the Darkness.”

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “Fine, whatever.” 

There are footsteps on the porch outside, and Sam listens to Dean’s heavy tread pass by the window en route to the other end of the cabin. He knows that their voices are low enough that the two outside shouldn’t be able to hear them through the walls, but still the silence of the night makes it seem like every word is twice as loud as it should be. As much as he’s angry, as much as he wants to prove to his brother that he can be trusted, there’s still a part of him that doesn’t want Dean hearing this discussion, these things that feel so intensely personal. 

Slowly, drawing in a breath, Sam turns in place and puts his back to the countertop. Lucifer straightens fractionally, as though by turning Sam has handed him some kind of progress, some kind of victory.

Stop it, Sam thinks. Stop being so... _angry._ But he can’t - something in him is turning circles, pacing like a caged beast, round and around, unable to free itself. This resentment, the sheer ferocity of it feels like it’s come almost out of nowhere, which is bizarre considering he has every right in the world to hate the Devil. He has a right to be angry, there should be an expectation of rage for all that was done to him. In fact he should be screaming at the archangel, using his hold over him to bend him and break his will, and yet. And yet. 

Lucifer is silent, watchful. Calm in a way that foils Sam’s fury and denies him a target. There’s no mockery in the archangel’s expression, no cruelty, no lewd jokes or crude threats. Nothing he can target with his frustration, just a cool, immoveable presence that waits and listens, polite and considerate. It’s both maddening and strangely, disturbingly alluring. Sam hesitates a long moment over that realisation, unsure what to make of it. How he could ever, possibly find Lucifer calming. 

But when Sam looks at him and finds no hint of mockery in the Devil’s gaze it’s like being back in the bad old days, the secret nights, the darkest ones where sometimes Lucifer didn’t have to say anything at all for Sam to wonder _what if?_ The memory of it almost makes him turn away again to hide, and he swallows hard, refusing to be caught wavering. He knows that Lucifer sees it regardless, and this is always the way of it, always Sam’s greatest weakness. His desire for there to be something better, another choice, another truth hidden behind the grimy reality of the world. Something purer. 

He’s a goddamned fool, and he has no idea what’s going on any more. 

“I felt it,” he grits out finally. “When you healed him. You- you took something from me.”

There’s a note of satisfaction, of knowing, in Lucifer’s eyes as the archangel nods. Still, he takes a long moment just to look at Sam before he replies. When he speaks his voice is low, gentle in that careful way of his, the one he uses only with Sam.

“I told you, Sam. You’re in control here. But this...spell. It’s binding me so tightly I can’t access most of my power. And when I do need it I have to ask you for permission, and that’s fine, that’s the way the spell works, we know that.”

Do we? Sam thinks. It’s a variation on the theme of control that he and Anisa had written into the spell, the idea that not every part of the archangel is present here. Of course, he’d somewhat guessed that from Lucifer’s reactions so far. His complete lack of superfluous energy expenditure. His lack of finger-snapping mojo, as Dean would call it. Sam had put it down to the requirement to do only as bidden, but now he wonders again if there’s more wrong with the Devil than would outwardly appear. He tries his utmost not to allow his thoughts to show on his face.

Lucifer regards him intently, then looks away, shaking his head, and Sam wonders if the gesture is meant to hide how much he’s read in Sam’s expression. Pulling out a chair, Lucifer twists it so he can sit with his forearms leaning on the back, and looks up at him. 

“I can’t access all my power because I’m partly still locked in the Cage,” he says plainly. “So I have to draw on your strength too sometimes. Just a little, to steady myself. Think of it as me grounding myself, using you as a touchstone, an anchor. Something to brace on so I can free my hands to do the really difficult things.”

Sam swallows. “Like healing Bobby?”

Lucifer nods, a brief close of his eyes and lift of his fingers from where they rest on his forearm his acknowledgement. Sam considers the archangel, wondering why they’re talking about this now. The last time they’d had this discussion Lucifer had implied that Sam was making it difficult for him to even stay here on this plane, now he’s saying it’s not possible to do basic archangel things without using Sam’s power. It doesn’t make sense.

“You killed that Leviathan just fine,” Sam says, and the accusation in his tone is crystal clear.

Lucifer leans back in the chair, shifting his weight, and his expression tells Sam that he was right, that there’s more to this than the simple equation the archangel was describing. 

_“Lucifer,”_ he stresses.

Lucifer shakes his head slowly and looks up at him. “I’m not lying to you, Sam. I’m just...trying to keep this simple.”

“Try again,” Sam grates out, and he knows from the look in the archangel’s eyes that he’s hearing the anger in his words. Lucifer doesn’t appear afraid of him and his anger, but he does seem wary of it.

“All right,” the angel says. He sighs again, and it’s such a human gesture that Sam knows he’s play-acting. He pauses for a long moment, long enough that Sam thinks he’s going to have to prompt him, and then says suddenly, “You aren’t going to like the truth, Sam. It’s going to make you angry, and that’s not going to help either of us. But hear me out. I am not lying to you, and I won’t lie to you. You know I tell the truth-”

“As you see it,” Sam whispers.

Lucifer pauses, then closes his mouth, sucking on his upper lip. He gives Sam a single dip of his chin in acknowledgement, then clearly sets aside any comeback he might have had for that accusation. His tightly held control is almost unnerving. 

“The truth is, Sam, you’ve bound me up in chains so tight I can barely breathe. And I get it, I really do. You have memories that are hounding you, making you afraid of me. If I were in your position, I’m sure I’d want to see me tied up nice and secure too. I don’t blame you, Sam. But I have to make it clear to you that if you keep on pulling on my chains as hard as you are, we’re both going to choke.”

“Excuse me?” 

Lucifer eyes Sam and then shrugs, shaking his head slowly. His voice is something that borders on gentle as he asks, “When was the last time you slept through the night, Sam?”

Sam feels his stomach drop, the gnawing hunger that had driven him to the kitchen for ever more food vanishing in the face of Lucifer’s words. The archangel raises his eyebrows and Sam swallows hard, floundering for any kind of comeback. He doesn’t want Lucifer talking about the shit he’s dealing with, doesn’t even want to admit out loud that the archangel might have worked it out, even if it’s apparently as plain as day to him. 

“What the hell has that got to do with anything?” 

Lucifer tilts his head to one side and the look he gives Sam steals the anger right out of him for its complete lack of judgement. He doesn’t know what to make of that expression, that knowing, patient countenance that for the first time seems angelic in a manner he’s so unused to seeing from the fallen archangel. It sends a chill of something he can’t name shivering across his skin, like fear or yearning or something else entirely. 

“You’ll burn yourself out, Sam,” Lucifer says mildly. “The tighter you hold on the deeper the chains cut.”

“I can’t believe you-”

“Don’t be angry, Sam, please,” Lucifer shakes his head and leans back, drawing in a breath. There’s a note of frustration in his voice, of pained exasperation that Sam doesn’t know what to do with. It sounds like a guilt trip, like manipulation, but it also sounds like the plain, irrefutable truth of the Lucifer he’d known before the Apocalypse. The arrogant, prideful bastard who’d been willing to burn the world on the pyre of his own outrage. Sam had understood that rage, that blinding, indignant disbelief that the world could be so impossibly twisted and that he might be somehow expected to tolerate it. For Sam it had led to a madness of a particular kind, full of morals and plans and good intentions gone sliding on down into the filth. For Lucifer? For the archangel the world would have burned itself clean.

Sam has never told Dean of those quiet moments in the darkest parts of their lives where sometimes he’d wondered, even if only for a moment, if maybe Lucifer had it right.

He swallows hard again and turns away, putting his back to the archangel and leaning heavily on the edge of the kitchen counter. He hears it when Lucifer gets to his feet, listens to him slowly pacing around the edge of the table, the creak of the floorboards and the slide of his fingertips across the tabletop. All of them little, unnecessary sounds made just for his benefit. He feels the weight of his presence at his back and wonders what he’ll see reflected back at him in the black square of the window if he opens his eyes now.

“Sam,” Lucifer says softly.

Sam remembers the Cage. He remembers the fire and soot-blackened shadow of it. The darkness that’s nothing to do with light and everything that encompasses the soul-destroying hunger of the despair permeating the place. He remembers Lucifer, burning with black fire, a vortex of hate and pain that had pinned him and enveloped him, burning pinions like razor-edged spikes piercing his flesh and slicing him open. He remembers screaming and he remembers the archangel’s delighted laughter. 

The memory of it seems...somehow hollow.

I don’t know what the hell is going on, he thinks again. The anger roils in his belly, making him sweat with it, and another part of him whines that if he just gives in, if he listens, reaches out for Lucifer then the archangel will somehow, paradoxically, make it all go away again. 

“Fuck,” he hisses. 

So desperate is he to both avoid touching Lucifer and also to escape that he almost clips the archangel’s shoulder as he turns and pushes past him. It makes the movement jerky and off-balance, and he catches the lift of Lucifer’s hand as the archangel reacts, reaching to steady him or perhaps expecting something else entirely. There’s a microsecond flash of surprise across Lucifer’s face, and then Sam is past him and away, fleeing the kitchen for the safety of the darkness beyond.

He leaves Lucifer standing alone in the kitchen, hand half-raised in aborted reaching, and flees out into the forest and the night.

  
  


*

  
  


“Sammy!”

He lets Dean catch up with him not far into the trees. With even the smallest possibility of Leviathans prowling around in the darkness it would be foolish to go further, and besides, in his desire to get away from Lucifer he’s left his torch sitting on the kitchen table. 

“Fuck,” he mutters again.

“Sam, what the hell?” 

By the time he allows Dean to catch up his brother has already worked himself up into the beginnings of a righteous concern, and Sam can’t find it in himself to put up with it. He bites his tongue and is glad of the darkness beneath the trees that hides the frustration on his face. 

“What’s going on? Something happened?” Dean asks, and Sam feels the weight of his brother’s hand on his shoulder. His grip is hard, and something in it touches a point of pain Sam hadn’t even realised was in him. It’s the strength of a brother reaching out to reassure and although it’s nothing new it feels all of a sudden like Sam hasn’t felt that touch for so damned long. It makes his throat tight and painful.

“No, I’m fine, I just- fuck.”

Dean hears the rasp in his voice, and his fingers tighten fractionally. He has his shotgun cradled in his other arm, and as he pulls Sam round to face him Sam realises he hadn’t even thought to bring his own gun out. What the hell is wrong with him?

“Sam,” Dean’s voice is low, unusually gentle for him, and Sam knows right there that he must look like a damned mess for his brother to use that tone with him. There’s enough light from the stars falling into the clearing for some to reach in below the trees, and even by its dim illumination he can see the worry in Dean’s eyes.

“Just- Lucifer,” he grates out, not knowing how else to put it. From the slight nod of his head and the long, indrawn breath, Dean seems to understand.

“What did that sonofabitch do now?”

“Nothing!” Sam shakes his head. “He just- goddamn it but he just, he gets under my skin, that’s all.”

Dean’s grip slips down to tighten on his upper arm. He leans in close, catching Sam’s eyes with his own, and says, “If he is fucking with you, you tell him to shut the hell up. You tell him to get back in that room of his and finish the damned spell or we’ll put him right back where he came from.”

“We can’t do that, Dean. We need him.”

Dean draws in a breath, shakes his head once and then squeezes Sam’s arm hard. “Then you tell him that if he tries anything again, any bullshit, any words that don’t relate directly to fixing this mess and getting that spell written, you are going to hand him over to me and I will deal with him. And believe me, he does not want that to happen because if he thinks sitting in the Cage was bad I have forty years of practice in the Pit and a hell of a good imagination that I will happily put to use on him.”

Despite himself, the words speak to some part of Sam, and he feels something in his chest loosen. Dean’s right, they don’t have to tolerate any crap from Lucifer.  _ He  _ doesn’t have to tolerate any crap. He’s the one in control here, and if Lucifer decides to test him, then, well, all he has to do is to tell him to stop, and this time,  _ this time, _ there’ll be no wriggling out of it. 

In the dim starlight Dean is watching him intently. Sam swallows hard and nods, whispering an agreement.

“Don’t you run from him, Sammy,” Dean says, quiet and forceful. “You make him bow the knee to you. He’s the one that’s going to be running this time, not us. And sure as hell not you. You got it?”

“Yeah,” Sam rasps. He clears his throat and nods. “Yeah, I got it.”

Dean claps him on the shoulder then, grip tight and hard, and Sam leans into it, letting the chill of the late autumn night fill him up and chase out the lingering tension from his body. They go back to the cabin together, side by side in the darkness.

  
  


*

  
  


Bobby is leaning against the jamb of the back door, looking out into the early morning mist as it curls softly between the trunks of the trees. The air is fresh and filled with the damp of the woods, and the busy chirp and song of the last of the dawn chorus pierces even the thick timber walls of the cabin. Sam lingers in the living room, watching from out of sight and listening to his gruff, monosyllabic side of the conversation.

He’s talking to Anisa, asking her if she’s heard anything else, if anyone’s made contact, if she’s seen anything more, if she’s safe. Sam doesn’t know how the old hunter knows her, even now, but he’s long since given up on guessing all the coiled links of Bobby Singer’s past. Instead he listens to the carefully couched concern in the other man’s voice, how he checks up on her without seeming to have any concerns for himself. He doesn’t mention that he nearly died in the dirt at the hands of some monster from before time even began, just offers the knowledge that the Levis are on the move again. Watch out, take care, call me if you need anything.

Sam puts his back to the cool wood of the living room wall and closes his eyes. He can hear Dean out in the front, messing with the vehicles, getting them ready to move if they need to ship out in a hurry. If they need to run again. It seems likely now, but it’s not certain. Nothing more had disturbed them during the night, no monsters trying to force their way in, just the one sitting silent in the back room, minding his own business again. 

Sam thinks of all the people that have been dragged into this mess now. All the hunters out there trying to contain monsters they can barely even evade, let alone kill. All the people dead at the hands of the thing Eve brought with her out of Purgatory. Of Anisa in France, and the coven she apparently runs according to Bobby. How they’ve had to go deep underground to avoid the repercussions of potentially being discovered as the people who might have allowed the Devil to walk free again. 

All those people relying on Sam and Lucifer to do what needs to be done to rid the world of the thing that’s come crawling out of the night. To keep them safe, or give them vengeance, whatever he can do for them now. He lets his head thump back against the wall and uses the pain to focus himself. All those people need him to be strong, need him to get a goddamned grip on himself and man up. Face the fear that’s threatening to undo everything they’ve done here and leave them wide open to attack.

And Dean. Dean is right. Sam is the one in control here. It’s time he started acting like it.

He finds Lucifer in the back room where they’d stowed him that first day, sitting on the dusty sheets of the thin bed, surrounded by warding sigils carved into the wood, put there as another, last-ditch effort to keep him in check.

Sam enters without knocking, and Lucifer looks up from the sheaves of paper surrounding him, a biro with the end chewed almost to cracking pressed against his lips. His eyes in the weak morning sunlight are excruciatingly blue.

“Fine,” Sam says shortly. “How do we make this work?”

To his credit, Lucifer does not smile. He simply leans back and tosses the pen down on the piles of scrawled notes, shifting his weight and sliding gracefully to his feet. He’s tall, even for a man, but he still has to look up slightly to meet Sam’s eyes. 

“Come with me,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate, I've watched the later seasons of SPN and I'm aware of what goes down, however this is a s6-7ish canon-divergence, so I'm picking and choosing lore from anything that's post S6 here. There'll be elements of stuff from the later seasons that crops up but you don't have to have seen them because it'll get explained in-text, and _definitely_ don't try to canon-lawyer any of it. :D We're here for Sam & S5 Lucifer doing their thing, and anything from later canon that gets in the way of that's getting booted.


	11. Dance With The Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strengthening the bond; Lucifer has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Sunday somewhere. Please enjoy these two early-posted chapters. :]

The heft of an angel blade, even after all these years, still feels strange in Sam’s hands. The metal of the weapon is cool to the touch, and no matter how often he holds one they feel just slightly off-balance. For something made to fit the hand of a celestial warrior that feels unexpected, or perhaps entirely fitting when the one that now holds it is something far lower, far more mundane. Sam looks down at the blade glinting silver in his hand and wonders who the angel was that once wielded it.

“Sehakial,” Lucifer murmurs, and the word is almost carried away by the soft breeze that’s playing through the clearing. 

Sam looks up at him in surprise. “You can tell that?” he asks, then frowns. “Don’t read my mind.”

Lucifer regards him mildly and blinks slowly in the morning sunlight filtering down through the trees. It’s still early enough that the angle of the sun is low, so that Sam is forced to squint a little at the archangel.

“I can see his name written in the fabric of the blade, although it’s dead now. And I wasn’t reading your mind, Sam. It doesn’t require telepathy to know what you were thinking, not this time.”

Sam knows that Lucifer is enjoying the expression on his face, he can tell from the slight smile that’s lifting the corner of the archangel’s mouth and the gleam that must be amusement in his eyes. But he can’t help it. Fascination with the angel’s words is at war with irritation at his smug tone, and the idea that Sam can be so easily read by him. Curiosity quickly wins out, and Sam tilts his head in query.

“What do you mean, dead?”

Lucifer is wearing the smugly indulgent look that Sam knows usually means he’s ready to impart some titbit of secret knowledge, known only to angels or, sometimes, known only to archangels. Despite the situation, Sam feels a spike of eagerness. If there’s one thing the two of them have in common it’s an interest in learning. 

With a lazy stretch of his arm, Lucifer reaches out and indicates the blade. His fingers hover mere inches from the metal, but he doesn’t touch. “The blade’s owner is dead, and therefore so is the blade,” he says.

Sam holds the weapon out a little further so that he can take it should he wish, but Lucifer shakes his head and withdraws his fingers. 

“It doesn’t look any different to the ones living angels carry,” Sam offers.

Lucifer cocks his head and with a look of disappointment that makes Sam shift uncomfortably, replies, “Only if you’re not paying attention, Sam.”

Three hours of hastily snatched sleep some time after midnight has done nothing to lift Sam’s mood, but at least the anger from last night has somewhat faded away. Perhaps it was that brief reassurance from Dean, or maybe it’s the certainty of his decision to make this work, or perhaps he’s just losing his mind. Even so he raises both eyebrows at Lucifer’s comment, and the Devil huffs soft amusement.

“The blade is just metal, blessed metal now, which is why it’s still moderately potent, but the animus that directed its power is gone. It holds on to the last traces of its previous owner’s grace, but eventually even that will fade and the blade will tarnish.”

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Sam admits.

Lucifer shrugs. “Takes a few years sometimes, depending on how often you kill with it.”

Sam looks up from the gleam of the blade and meets Lucifer’s eyes. Something about the archangel’s words, so casually offhand, offends him and he’s not even sure why. Lucifer meets his narrow-eyed glare and sighs. 

“Where did you get the blade?”

Sam shifts uncomfortably. “It was in the trunk, we have a couple now.”

“Sam…”

“God, fine. I don’t remember. Some fight we had with Raphael’s goons. Castiel- he gave them to us after, or we picked them up. I didn’t keep track. Angel blades are useful,” he finishes, a little defensively. 

Now Lucifer’s eyebrows have risen, and he makes a considering face, pacing a slow line away from Sam. He doesn’t reply, and all at once Sam’s struck by the realisation that no matter that it had been life or death, us or them, that blade had once belonged to one of Lucifer’s younger siblings. “Sorry,” he says softly. “I guess you knew him.”

Lucifer turns to him sharply, as though surprised. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Sam. I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him myself had he moved against me. You were within your rights to defend yourself, and, as they say, to the victor go the spoils.”

Sam doesn’t trust the smile that Lucifer turns on him then, there’s something far too cavalier about it. “Still,” he says, feeling awkward. “He was your brother.”

“Sehakial. Minor angel of silence, one of Duma’s choir, though living up to his domain now I note.”

“I don’t get you,” Sam snaps suddenly. “Don’t you care that we killed your family? If anyone went after Dean I’d kill them. I  _ have  _ killed them.”

Suddenly, Lucifer is before him. Sam registers him begin to move, but even so the archangel has crossed the eight paces between them before he even has chance to draw back in surprise. This close he feels bigger than the six foot of his frame, but despite the suddenness of it he doesn’t bring with him the shadow and weight of an angry archangel. Even so, Sam blinks in surprise as Lucifer leans in close, closer than he has in days.

“And that’s the problem, Sam,” Lucifer says, and his voice is soft gravel, almost a whisper. “You don’t understand me, and I, well. I thought I understood you. Now? I’m not so sure any more.”

Sam swallows. There’s a scent of something he doesn’t recognise on Lucifer, rising off his skin like the tang of ozone in the air before a storm. In the Cage Lucifer had smelled of burning blood and smoke, a sickening mixture that had turned Sam’s stomach even in his dreams. This though, this makes him think of angels’ wings and the sky, and for a moment he’s thrown entirely out of his chain of thought.

“There’s nothing to understand,” Sam says. “You just need to do what I tell you.”

Lucifer makes a quiet, amused noise, and then dips his chin to look up at Sam. 

“Hm,” is all he says.

In the weak morning sunlight his eyes are a washed-out shade of blue and Sam can feel the weight of his attention like a physical force. It feels like being commanded, even though the angel hasn’t made a single move. 

“What-”

“You want to save the world, Sam?” Lucifer interrupts.

For a second Sam feels his mouth thin into an angry line. This cuts far too close to mockery for him, touching on old dreams, old hopes, infantile delusions from another life that he’s never really let go of. All reveries that Lucifer has pulled out of him, turned over in his bloodied hands, and found wanting. 

“I want this monster dead,” he grits out. “I want it stopped, and I want this world safe from it.”

“Hm,” Lucifer says again. His pale eyes watch Sam with interest, and Sam feels his pulse hammering in his throat. He has control here, he doesn’t have to tolerate any of this a moment longer. 

“I don’t want to destroy the world, Sam,” Lucifer says softly, so quietly the words are almost lost beneath the whisper of the wind through the leaves. “I don’t particularly want to save it either.” 

He shrugs, the movement languid. Sam feels his mouth twitch in anger. The absolute, unrelenting arrogance of this creature. He’d been calm before this, willing to forgive Lucifer’s baiting, but now? Now he’s ready to punch him. 

The archangel’s self-satisfied smirk is what decides it for him. Sam’s fist connects square with the bridge of Lucifer’s nose, and the archangel doesn’t even try to dodge. It’s a heavy blow, straight to the face, and with Sam’s strength behind it, it would have knocked a mortal man clean out. Lucifer rocks back on his heels, staggers once, and when he sways forward again it’s with a breathy exhalation of delighted laughter. The sound of it makes Sam snap completely. 

He lunges for Lucifer and the angel goes over backwards, pulling him down with him. Sam’s almost surprised by the move, but his overflowing fury burns away any hesitation. He pins Lucifer beneath him on the dew-wet grass, and lays into the archangel with all his strength. Lucifer lifts up his arms and blocks Sam’s blows with his forearms, turning his head away, but the rage in Sam won’t be denied and as many blows as he blocks still find their way through his defences. 

Throughout it all, Lucifer still laughs. 

By the time Sam is done with him, it’s because he’s exhausted the rage burning him up and replaced it with the ache of something colder, something emptier. He sits back on his heels, still straddling the archangel’s prone body, knees in the dirt either side of Lucifer’s hips. The angel is a warm, hard press of bone and muscle beneath his thighs and Sam puts his aching hands flat on his knees and leans his head back, panting hot exhaustion up at the early morning sky. When he looks down again, Lucifer is watching him.

There’s blood on the archangel’s face, and none of it is his own. Sam can feel the throbbing of his split knuckles where they bleed into the cool air, no match for the supernatural resistance of an archangel’s flesh. The angel isn’t laughing any more, and there’s no sly grin on his face now. He’s just lying there, watching Sam with quiet patience, as though waiting for him to realise something.

“You’re a bastard,” Sam rasps. 

Lucifer blinks slow acknowledgement of this, but doesn’t otherwise reply. Sam can feel the steady rise and fall of the angel’s belly beneath his thighs as Lucifer breathes, unconcerned and composed. Why he allows himself to breathe when he doesn’t even bleed is just another question in a long list that Sam’s been quietly gathering up in his head for some magical day when the first thing on his mind isn’t ganking the latest in a long line of monsters. Until then-

“You did that on purpose,” Sam says.

Lucifer shrugs, somewhat awkwardly with Sam’s weight still pressing on him, and doesn’t take his eyes off of Sam’s face. 

“You had a little bit of anger to work out, Sam,” he replies. “And you weren’t doing anything about it.”

“I was trying to keep calm.”

“Wasn’t working, Sam,” Lucifer drawls amicably. “I had to find a way to give you a little push. Get things moving.”

“You know,” Sam replies, looking back up at the sky and letting the sunlight warm his face. “I don’t think you were joking, I think you were completely serious. You don’t care about saving the world.”

He feels Lucifer shift slightly beneath him, and then the angel’s fingertips are resting lightly on his split knuckles. Sam feels a chill like the crackling of ice rush through his skin, cold and sparkling and alive, and looks down to find the skin restored and the blood vanished. 

Lucifer looks back up at him, entirely content there on his back beneath Sam’s weight, as though this is the most normal and relaxing thing he’s ever done. His gaze is intent though, and Sam feels his heart thud once, hard, in his chest. That look is full of potential, of the raw, celestial honesty of archangels.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to, Sam.”

Looking down at him there on his back in the dew damp grass, feeling the solid, unquestionable realness of him beneath his own flesh, Sam, for the first time, truly believes him.

  
  


*

  
  


Even without a blade in his hand, even without the full complement of his powers at his disposal, Lucifer is still better in a fight than Sam in every single way. At first Sam had been reluctant to use Sehakial’s blade if Lucifer wasn’t going to be carrying one of his own, some quaint sense of honour that he should have long since grown out of making the situation seem unfair. Once they begin to spar Sam’s reluctance quickly gives way to understanding, and then a certain level of alarm as he realises that he has about as much chance of scoring a hit on Lucifer as he does of sprouting wings and flying away. 

Lucifer moves like water, graceful as a dancer and fast as a striking snake. If it weren’t for the binding bracelet and the strict parameters the archangel had laid down before they’d even begun, Sam thinks his mild alarm would have quickly turned to pants-wetting terror. There is quite clearly no chance that he can take the archangel in a straight brawl. This isn’t like fighting angels of the line, new to their human vessels and inexperienced in their use, this is going up against an archangel with all the control of a vast, alien being whose understanding of Creation and how to bend it to his will makes Sam’s Stanford education and yoga flexibility look like a toddler’s muddling. 

‘Sparring’ Lucifer had called it. As though a light bout of mortal combat is what every archangel and defiant former vessel requires to smooth out their rocky relationship. Sam had been dubious at first, then hadn’t thought much at all beyond the perfect concentration required to keep Lucifer at bay, and only later, with the sun rising overhead and warming the clearing had he realised that they’d somehow slipped into something akin to a rhythm. 

It’s been some time since Lucifer called a pause. As the hours have passed, he’s broken up their sparring with small instructional respites, short periods in which he adjusts Sam’s grip on his blade, or demonstrates a particular move for him to follow. Time for Sam to catch his breath and Lucifer to gauge his mood. Sam knows what he’s doing, how he’s being careful not to rile him up - there’s a fine line between keeping a bout interesting and preventing Sam from feeling like he’s in actual mortal danger, and Lucifer is walking it with all the liquid grace of a cat. 

In all honesty, despite the need for constant concentration, Sam hasn’t felt this good in some time. The physical activity agrees with him, the pulse of his blood and the warmth in his muscles, the adrenaline that lifts him and keeps him going. The challenge not only of Lucifer’s speed, but his dexterity and intelligence as well, makes him a fascinating sparring partner. He prowls just outside Sam’s range, daring him to come closer with his lazy confidence, and sliding sinuously out of the way when Sam finally chooses to strike.

He never touches Sam, and never allows himself to be touched. He catches the angel blade in his bare hands, twisting in a way that Sam doesn’t fully understand, but which sees him tossed over on his backside in the grass before he’s fully registered what’s happening. It’s like wrestling smoke. 

“You were faster that time,” Lucifer comments.

Sam accepts the hand that’s offered to pull him to his feet, almost without thinking about it. By the time he’s registered what he’s done Lucifer has already withdrawn and moved his customary five paces away. Blinking, Sam rolls his shoulders to cover his self-consciousness, and the archangel gives him his space.

“Uh, I’m uh, getting a feel for this, I guess,” he replies, not sure what to say. But it’s true. Lucifer is a patient, surprisingly non-judgemental teacher, and under his instruction Sam has found himself learning ways of fighting he’d never before considered. Over the long years of his hunting career Sam’s had enough hand-to-hand training from other hunters and real life encounters, even a couple of professional courses from time to time, that he’s always felt confident of his ability to handle himself. This though, this is something else entirely. Lucifer catches his look and perhaps lifts something of his thoughts for he raises his eyebrows at Sam in query.

“I just-” Sam starts, then shakes his head. How to explain what’s in his mind, the difference between self-defence and the sheer artistry of what Lucifer is teaching him. It’s practical, but it’s beautiful and elegant and strangely life-affirming too. God, he hopes the archangel hasn’t picked that thought out of his mind, the last thing he needs is his mockery. Dean alone would have a field day with that phrasing. 

But Lucifer just watches him, and there’s a small, pleased smile on his lips that makes something in Sam want to smile right back at him. It’s confusing, and he doesn’t know what to make of the inclination. 

“I just haven’t really had a chance to do something so, uhm, I dunno. Specific, I guess.” 

Sam cocks an uncertain look at Lucifer who hums an acknowledgement in return. He doesn’t seem surprised, more like satisfied. It makes Sam wonder.

“There is a celebration of form, a beauty of expression in any finely honed skill, Sam. To express to perfection the capability of your being is to manifest the divine,” the archangel says gently.

Sam stares at him in disbelief. “That sounds...a little like hokum,” he says with one lifted brow.

Lucifer laughs, and the sound is bright and authentic, honest in a way Sam hasn’t heard from him perhaps ever before. It’s curious to hear it here and now, like this. 

“Shall we continue?” Lucifer asks.

“In a second,” Sam replies. The archangel relaxes back from his readied posture, and hooks his thumbs into his belt, tilting his head, birdlike, in query. For a moment Sam has to think about how he wants to phrase this so that it doesn’t sound too confrontational. Despite himself he’s actually enjoying the buzz he’s getting off the physical exertion, and the truce they’ve drawn up between themselves feels good after so many long days of tension. “I get why we’re doing this, okay? I get that you were trying to have me let off some steam, and I also get that you’re trying to keep us working together, but what I don’t understand is...why this?” 

Lucifer dips his chin and raises an eyebrow.

“Why fighting, Lucifer?”

“Ah.” 

The archangel looks up at the trees ringing the clearing and begins a slow saunter that takes him away from Sam and then back in a loose circle. He sniffs, as though considering his words carefully, then throws a glance over his shoulder back at him. It’s an eerily familiar prowl that takes Sam back to the way he’d looked that night when Sam had gone to him to say yes, and for a split-second his breath catches in his throat. Lucifer notices the sudden tension in him and comes to an immediate halt, and for a second they regard one another in wary silence.

And then Sam swallows and very carefully, and very deliberately, pushes the fear down and locks it away.

“So?” he says, and his voice is stronger than he’d ever thought it would be.

He sees Lucifer’s chest rise and then fall in something that’s too inscrutable to definitely be relief, but can’t be far from it. The angel gives a shrug of one shoulder, his eyes flickering away from Sam for just a moment, before returning to his face. 

“Because it gives you proof of your control in a very real way, and because there is a connection between two who face one another in a duel. Even between those who fight to the death, perhaps especially then, there’s a bond. A give and take. A very specific understanding between the two that falls between love or hate, that encompasses both and rises above each of them. You’ve felt it, Sam, in those moments when your monster of the week has you cornered, when it’s nothing but you and them and the weapons in your hand. Don’t delude yourself, you know what I’m talking about.”

He does, god damn it but Sam knows exactly what the Devil is talking about. The rush of adrenaline that lifts the body and makes every movement feel like it’s drawn along by silk threads. The speed of it, the thrill and fear and electric spark of anticipation. The knowing of the other person in a way that’s beyond emotion and into the twisted intimacy of people balanced on the knife-edge between life and death. It’s being alive like nothing else, and it reminds Sam bitterly of all the other things he’s done to feel alive.

“Getting your ass handed to you by me and Dean teach you that?” he asks, face carefully bland, because he knows it will rankle the archangel to have his baiting bore someone so completely.

“My  _ brother  _ taught me that.” 

Sam doesn’t need to be told which brother they’re talking about, he hears it in the low growl of an eons-old rage in the archangel’s voice. Lucifer is staring at him, a flat, angry glare and it’s the first time Sam thinks he’s seen Lucifer openly hostile since his return. It makes him want to reach for the bracelet around his wrist, pulse jumping in alarm. 

And then the anger slides out of Lucifer’s gaze, and he rocks back on his heels, letting his eyes fall closed.

“Very good, Sam,” he murmurs.

“What?”

Sam blinks, unsure what’s happening, and Lucifer opens his eyes, easing out a long, slow breath. The angel regards him with the barest of smiles on his lips and snorts softly.

“You know me better than you’ll admit, Sam Winchester. Better I think than you even realise.”

“But I still don’t understand you.”

Even as he says it he knows it’s not entirely true. There had been a time when the two of them had walked in unison, looking out at the world from behind the same eyes. When the archangel’s thoughts had overlain his own, glittering and pure in their purpose, even if not in their intent. A strange, wounded part of Sam still yearns for that unfathomable certainty of purpose he’d felt in the archangel’s will, that absolutely unshakeable resolve. It had been humbling to be shown just how small his voice had been in the midst of all the universe. To be heard regardless. 

He blinks, shaking his head to clear the cloying memories. He hasn’t thought of the specifics of those half-forgotten days in months, perhaps more than a year now. In truth, the memories are usually formless and hazy, the purity of his understanding lost over time beneath the meat and grime of the human condition. 

The sunlight is turning Lucifer’s hair to gold, haloing him in light, and Sam blinks at the image until the archangel takes a step forwards and into the shadow of the trees and the illusion is gone.

“Hm,” Lucifer says thoughtfully. “Shall we continue, or has this been enough for today?”

“No,” Sam says decisively. “Let’s go on.”

Some time around midday, with the sun risen high in the sky, Dean shows up at the edge of the clearing to watch them spar. He stands with folded arms, leaning against a tree trunk and it’s only because of the narrow-eyed look of condescension that Lucifer casts over Sam’s shoulder that Sam even notices his brother at all. Lucifer gives him no time to pause, moving in to snatch at the angel blade in Sam’s hand, making him leap backwards and away, forcing him to concentrate. The archangel is still not fighting with his own blade. He’s picked up a stick of roughly equivalent length to use instead, and Sam would be offended by that were it not for the fact the archangel is still relentlessly thrashing him with it.

By the time Lucifer allows him to pause long enough to check Dean’s mood, his brother has already left. Sam frowns into the trees, squinting towards the cabin just visible between the foliage, and wonders if he should have said something about what they’re doing. They’ve not gone far from base, and Dean knows that they’ve been trying to work together, knows that Sam can control the archangel, so surely he doesn’t need to be informed of every little detail.

“Maybe I should go see if he wanted anything…” Sam says uncertainly.

“No,” says Lucifer, and without preamble he flicks his stick across Sam’s field of vision, making the hunter jump back to escape the blow. By the time Sam has enough attention spare to think about anything other than dodging the archangel’s quicksilver attacks, he’s already forgotten what he was worrying about.

It’s an hour or so later by the time Dean returns. He brings with him a flask and a plate of bacon sandwiches, the scent of which Sam catches even over the whirl and flicker of their blades. By now, their sparring has moved on from adversarial combat to the imitation of each other’s movements, in a game that’s a bit like dancing, a little like the Tai Chi Sam took for a while in college. Lucifer has him copying his every move, mimicking the sweep of his stick blade and the smooth, elegant steps of his combat forms, more like dance patterns than anything to do with fighting. Sam doesn’t need to be told what the angel’s goal is this time, he feels it in the strange sense of harmony that accompanies the exercise, less an anticipation of the other’s movements and more a certainty of them. A unity of form and shared purpose he’s not felt in years while working with someone other than his brother. It’s strangely relaxing. 

By the time they come to the end of their current set and Sam finally breaks eye contact with the archangel, he finds that Dean has already gone. He’s left the plate of sandwiches sitting on an old tree stump, the flask next to them. Sam turns a surprised look on Lucifer who simply folds his arms and shrugs his indifference. Huffing at the foibles of both brothers and archangels alike, Sam snatches up his towel and goes to make short work of Dean’s offering. 

The afternoon is fading towards the chill of evening by the time Lucifer calls a halt to their work. It’s been ten hours since they began amidst the mists of the early morning, and now the sun is long since dipped behind the trees and the clearing has been cast into fading slants of sunlight and shadow. Even being at the peak of fitness, Sam can feel the heavy drag of a day full of hard physical exertion. There’s a slight light-headedness in him, and a tremble in his muscles that tells him he should probably have tried to eat more than just a few sandwiches, but otherwise he feels good. He feels peaceful, centred, as though he’s spent the day meditating, which perhaps in some senses, he has. 

Sam has always enjoyed physical exertion. He’s good at it for one thing, and for another it centres and calms him like nothing else, lifting his mood more reliably than alcohol or anything like it. And Lucifer is right, there is a joy to sparring, a shared experience that goes beyond morals and manifests itself in a strange, cooperative rapport that had felt in its own way as addictively euphoric as any drug. There had been a point there towards the end of their sparring when Sam had moved and Lucifer had moved with him, and neither of them could have known what was coming, not really, and yet somehow their form had continued unbroken. 

Sam pauses in the middle of the clearing, watching as the archangel saunters over to the treeline to toss his stick blade back into the undergrowth. He realises suddenly that he doesn’t have the words to describe what he’s feeling. English doesn’t have a term for such a sense of harmony, the surreal catharsis of moving as two beings but thinking as one, if that’s what they’d even been doing. For a moment there at the end, when Lucifer had drawn the sparring to a close, Sam had thought for one jarring instant that there should have been more to it. That he expected more, wanted more, but- and there the thought had ended because whatever he’d been needing he doesn’t have the words or even the framework to articulate it. 

It takes him a moment to realise that Lucifer is watching him. Sam looks up from where his eyes have come to rest on a point in the centre of the archangel’s chest and finds himself meeting the angel’s gaze across the clearing. He blinks in surprise.

“Sam?” 

Lucifer tilts his head, and his voice is slow, considering. 

“What’s wrong, Sam?”

There’s a note of anticipation shaded into the question that makes Sam think the archangel already knows exactly what he was thinking. For once it doesn’t make him angry, but there’s still something about the disjointed tumble of his thoughts that makes him cautious. He doesn’t know if he wants to speak what he’s feeling out loud, in case something forms from the shapeless confusion of his thoughts and becomes a thing he doesn’t want to name.

“It’s getting late,” he says instead, and almost stumbles the words. “We should go back.”

Lucifer doesn’t press him, but Sam catches the smile he obscures beneath the lowering of his chin, and for once the smugness of it doesn’t make Sam want to punch him.

It’s a strange feeling. 

  
  


*

Dinner is chilli, and Sam eats so fast he barely registers the taste of it. Bobby keeps his head down, steadily making his way through his own portion while Dean sits and stares at his brother across the table. Lucifer is lounging at the window, watching the night fall. Occasionally he turns to look at Sam, and something of what he sees puts the smallest of smiles on his mouth. Every time Dean catches him do it he glares antipathy at the archangel, which only makes the angel’s smile pull wider.

Sam puts his bowl down and reaches across the table for a hunk of bread, which he then applies with singular determination to wiping his plate clean of every last trace of food. Bobby watches him out of the corner of his eye, and Dean finally takes another bite of his own food, shaking his head. At the window, the archangel watches them all in the reflection of the glass and this time no-one catches his smile.

“So, are you two done with your Evangelion routine then?”

Sam looks up from his plate at Dean and gives his brother a look of absolute incomprehension. 

“Evan-what now?”

“Dude. Seriously?”

Sam shrugs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, man.”

Dean gives an exaggerated shrug of disgust at his brother’s lack of a pop culture education and glares at him. Sam returns the look with an amused lift of his eyebrow, quite accustomed to Dean’s bizarre set of niche geek interests, and decides he really doesn’t want to know which one this is referencing. 

“The dancing, Sam. It was practically Swan Lake out there today.”

Sam sits back with an affronted frown, and shakes his head. “We were sparring, Dean, not dancing.”

“Mm,” the archangel says from across the room. “Dancing would not be an unfair description.”

Sam throws him a look of almost comical betrayal, and Dean accepts his victory with a vindicated nod. 

“Dancing, Sam.”

“I- okay, whatever. Both of you, whatever. We were keeping the spell strong, Dean. The summoning, like I told you. Same as with the chess, you know that.”

Sam reaches for more bread and busies himself stuffing it into his mouth, as Dean pulls an unimpressed face at him. 

“What about the actual spell?” he pushes. “You know, the one that he’s here to cast?”

“Still in the pipeline, Dean,” Lucifer answers smoothly, voice soft and dangerous. 

“And how long is that pipe exactly?” 

Lucifer turns, and his smile is all teeth and carefully controlled spite. “As long as it needs to be. Perhaps you’ve received some more news of the beast that I can use to inform my casting?”

At Dean’s narrow-eyed and silent glare, Lucifer dips his chin into a smile of sympathy. It rings entirely false on his face, and Sam throws him an irritated glance before setting his bowl down with a thump. 

“We’re doing what we can to keep this working,” he snaps. “I’m not doing this for fun, you know.”

To his surprise Dean doesn’t immediately reply. Sam waits for the inevitable explosion of accusations, but they don’t come. After a moment his brother sits back in his chair and then picks up his fork and resumes eating. Sam shares a perplexed look with Bobby, and then the old hunter picks up his empty plate and with a nod to Sam pushes back his chair. 

“I’m going back out to watch,” he says gruffly. “One of you boys join me later.”

“All right, Bobby,” Dean says. Then, with a nod towards Sam, he flicks a glance towards the archangel. “We’ll share watches again tonight. Get him doing something useful too.”

Lucifer gives Dean a sideways look as the comment reaches him, but Sam jumps in before the next round of sniping can start.

“Yeah, okay. That sounds like a good idea. Lucifer, you heard him. Can you keep an eye out tonight please?”

Dean chews slowly as he watches Sam’s face, and Sam knows it’s the phrasing that’s irritating his brother. Of course he doesn’t need to say please, it’s just ingrained habit. And there’s nothing wrong with being civil, is there? Dean’s opinion clearly differs on the matter, and Sam frowns at him.

“I would have done that anyway, Sam,” Lucifer replies mildly.

“Great,” says Dean. “Why don’t you go start on that now?”

To give him all due credit, Dean waits until Lucifer has pushed himself lazily upright and sauntered unconcernedly out of the room, closing the back door behind him, before he starts in on Sam.

“Sammy, tell me something good’s come out of today.”

Sam runs his hands down his face and then leans back in his chair to stare briefly up at the ceiling. He doesn’t know what to tell his brother. He gets that Dean is impatient, hell, he feels exactly the same bite of fear and frustration himself. That they’ll leave it too long, come up with something too late, and in the time they spend treading water out here more innocent people will die. But when it comes right down to it, they’re not sitting still. Even if Dean can’t see the progress being made, Sam can feel it, and if it surprises him to be able to admit that, well, he’ll file that away for further consideration later.

“It did, Dean. It has.”

Dean spreads his hands in silent demand, and Sam wants to snarl at the disbelief he sees in his brother’s face. Instead he puts his hands flat on the table and locks gazes with him, willing him to understand.

“Lucifer and I, we’re getting better at working together. I’m- I think I’m starting to understand how to make this work. How I can keep him under control and still give him enough rope to do the things he needs to.”

“How?” Dean asks at once.

Sam breathes in long and deep, trying to work out the words to use, the ones that won’t set off his brother’s over-cautious, overprotective instincts. It’s difficult, because Dean’s inflexibility has never wavered when it comes to holding Sam to account for his weaknesses. And at that thought Sam can’t help the bitter smile that pulls at his lips. So much for getting rid of all his anger; some of it apparently runs far too deep.

“The better a feel I get for how he works, the easier it is to let him have access to what he needs,” he says eventually.

“What do you mean, what he needs?”

As much as it mirrors his own, Dean’s suspicion sends a spike of irritation straight through Sam’s blood. He has to fight to keep his reaction off his face, turning his eyes down to look at the table, as though he’s trying to find the right words. 

“He can’t cast or do anything really significant if I don’t give him permission. He can’t even draw on his power. He’s dead in the water, Dean, unless I let him do something. Even healing Bobby, he couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t let him do it and, no! Just listen, will you?” Sam lifts his gaze to glare at his brother until Dean subsides with an unhappy frown. “Even after I’d told him to heal him, he still had to ask me to be able to draw enough power to do it. He couldn’t have done it if I’d said no at that point. He doesn’t just need me to tell him what to do, he needs me to let him do it too.”

For a long moment Dean stares at him, mouth pressed into a troubled line. Then he breathes out explosively, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what he said too.”

Sam cocks his head in surprise. “He- you spoke to him about this? When?”

“The other day,” Dean replies grimly. “You were fixing the roof with Bobby. I had a quick word with him, just to see what he’d say.”

“Huh,” is all Sam can bring himself to reply. 

Dean closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “Don’t be like that, Sam. I wasn’t checking up on you, I was seeing if he’d try anything with me.”

“And did he?”

Deans gaze is level. “No.”

To be honest Sam’s surprised. He’s not blind to the antagonism Lucifer directs Dean’s way, nor is he deaf to the archangel’s sly provocations. That he’d keep himself in check well enough not to set Dean off completely could mean any number of things from not wanting to annoy Sam to not being able to deal with the fallout of a full schism between the two of them. Interesting.

“Just tell me you think you’re making progress,” Dean says softly.

Taken aback by the desperation he hears in his brother’s voice, Sam straightens in his chair. He meets Dean’s gaze with all the sincerity he has in him, and replies, “I am. We are.”

“All right,” says Dean, and leaves it at that. 

  
  


*

After the warmth of the day the night feels even colder than expected for the season. Sam sits in a faded old deck chair out on the veranda, shotgun across his lap, and looks out into the darkness. For all that his night vision is pretty good he can see very little out there. The stars have been occluded by a spread of cloud, and the best he can do is pick out the darker shadows where the thick foliage starts and the trees close in together. Instead he listens, letting the night sounds settle across him and inform him of what might be out there waiting in the blackness. 

It’s some time close to midnight, and he’s been out here five hours. Bobby and Dean are currently taking their turns sleeping and are due out in another hour or so, and then Sam will go to bed, taking the archangel back inside with him. Neither his brother nor Bobby want to share a watch with the Devil, and it’s been agreed that he’ll stay inside working on the spell while Sam sleeps. For now though it’s just Sam and the archangel waiting in the dark for something to try its luck.

Sam is acutely, painfully aware of Lucifer. Even with the archangel on the other side of the log cabin his presence is like a weight on the air, a potentiality for something Sam isn’t sure of. He’d say violence, but it’s nothing so crude as that. It’s an electric spark that runs up his spine and makes his blood hum with it, and he realises uncomfortably that it reminds him very much of the feeling he’d had when they’d been sparring. He thinks again of the way they’d moved together, working so seamlessly that it was beyond even the swift calculations of accurate prediction.

Connection. 

That was it. That was the word he’d been searching for. Without warning it pops into his head as though spoken directly into his mind. Sam runs his thumb across the stock of his shotgun, thinking of how easy it had been to copy the archangel’s movements, to anticipate the sweep of his blade and move to mimic it. Like dancing, Lucifer had said, and out here in the privacy of the night Sam allows himself to acknowledge the accuracy of that. 

For all their success he still feels as though there should have been something more, something he still can’t understand. It leaves him feeling off balance and restless, and for a dangerous second he has the overwhelming urge to get up and go ask the archangel what the hell this feeling is that’s shaking him up inside. His grip tightens on the stock of the gun and then the moment is past and he breathes again.

It’s well past one by the time Dean comes out to relieve him, Bobby close behind. Sam moves around to the other side of the cabin and collects the archangel with a whisper, then heads inside. He feels Lucifer on his heels, padding silently along in his wake and has no idea if it’s his imagination that makes him feel the angel’s eyes on the back of his head the whole time.

“Spellwork,” he says to him curtly once they’re inside, the door closed firmly behind them. Then he heads off immediately to bed before the archangel has the opportunity to answer back and throw him even further into a misery of confusion. 

  
  


*

That night Sam sleeps fitfully, and his dreams are full of the blackened iron chains of hell, and the scent of blood, burning hot and thick where his palms slide and scrabble in it. The visions are terrible and unrelenting, and threaded through it all is the low, aching hum of something that might in another life have been singing.


	12. Elk City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Devil went down to Elk City; I didn't know you could do that...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second of today's chapters~

Morning dawns bright with birdsong that pierces even the thick walls of the cabin. Sam lies on his back, blinking up at the ceiling blearily. His head is a throbbing mass of sleep-deprived pain and there’s a knot of nausea sitting pretty in the pit of his stomach. The bedside clock reads a quarter to six in the morning, and there’s another half hour of sleep in it for him if he could only get back there. He pushes himself upright instead, wincing against his body’s protestations. 

Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes he massages some awareness back into his senses, pushing down the visions of last night’s fitful dreaming. The nightmares are nothing new. Just run of the mill screaming visions of hell, ones that he’s dealt with for months now. Nothing’s changed, nothing he can’t cope with. All the same bullshit, all the days of his life. 

When he opens the bedroom door he almost jumps out of his skin he startles so hard. Lucifer is sitting with his back to the door, so close that he must have been leaning on it, and Sam nearly trips right over him in his early morning haze. 

“What the fuck!” he exclaims, voice pitched high with shock. “What the hell are you doing?”

Lucifer twists to look up at him and gives Sam such a look of undisguised assessment that he almost feels naked beneath the archangel’s scrutiny. The piercing appraisal lasts only a few seconds, and then Lucifer is pushing himself to his feet, dusting off his jeans as though sitting in front of someone’s closed bedroom door waiting for them to emerge is the most natural thing a person could do.

“Good morning, Sam,” he says softly.

“Dude, what?” Sam replies, nonplussed. But Lucifer simply steps aside and stands watching him from a polite distance, expression gone as mild as a summer’s day. 

Sam’s exclamation has attracted attention and Bobby pokes his head out of the kitchen to level a suspicious glare at the pair of them. He takes in Sam’s just-risen state and Lucifer’s folded-arms stance with a frown of disapproval and then, seeing that all is about as well as it can be given the circumstances, disappears back into the kitchen shaking his head. Sam stares after him and then switches his gaze back to the waiting archangel. Lucifer is still watching him intently. 

“Dude, come on. It is too damned early for this,” Sam snaps. The archangel says nothing, merely raises his eyebrows. Coupled with a headache that’s not getting any better, Lucifer’s unblinking stare is enough to do for any attempts at morning cheer Sam might have entertained. He throws the angel a look of frustration and then stalks past him. “I’m going for a shower. Do not follow me, Lucifer!”

He doesn’t so much as glance back to catch the expression on the archangel’s face.

By the time he returns, Bobby is already outside digging around in the woodshed. Sam can hear the thunk of logs in their store and the metal clang of tools being shifted around. He goes over to the small refrigerator, and pulls out the makings of breakfast, frowning a little when his eye catches sight of dirty plates next to the sink. Dean’s clearly already eaten. 

Lucifer wanders in not long after Sam, settling down at the kitchen table in silence. Sam can feel the archangel watching him as he makes his porridge and slices fruit. If it weren’t for the warmth of the shower driving away the worst of his headache he might be less than impressed by it, but as it is the water has brought him somewhat back to life, restoring some of the energy that sleep did not. By the time he turns back to sit down at the table he’s expecting to find Lucifer staring off at nothing, bored already by the mundanity of human routine. But the archangel is still watching him, elbows resting on the table, fingers interlaced. He doesn’t slouch, not like he always does in Sam’s visions. He sits more or less straight, always attentive, his more languid movements, those that hit obnoxious square on the nose, are reserved primarily for when Dean is around.

“What, dude?” Sam asks in exasperation.

For a second Lucifer hesitates, as though weighing up his words. Then he shrugs, and the twist to his lips is all indifference and poorly mimed disinterest. It puts Sam on his guard immediately.

“How did you sleep?” the archangel asks, as though entirely unconcerned by the answer.

Sam feels a flicker of chill go through him. He’d slept badly, and he knows that sometimes he can be loud when the nightmares are particularly bad. He doesn’t remember waking up and making noise, but Dean’s occasional morning grimness has told him in the past that he doesn’t always recall when he’s done it. Frowning, he meets Lucifer’s sidelong look and shrugs. The reason for the archangel’s presence right outside his door this morning occurs to him suddenly, and that sours his mood still further. The idea of Lucifer hanging around listening to him having nightmares is enough to put him off his breakfast.

The archangel winces and breaks eye contact, looking away with a sigh. The likeness to one of Dean’s bitchy, put out expressions makes Sam snort unexpected laughter. Lucifer regards him with surprise, and Sam shakes his head, refusing to be drawn. He applies himself to his breakfast instead, deliberately putting creepy archangel antics as far out of his mind as he can. 

Sam is almost done with breakfast when Bobby comes back inside. The old hunter casts a grim look Lucifer’s way, then quite obviously chooses to ignore the archangel’s presence, before filling the kettle for more tea. 

“Bobby, where’s Dean?” Sam asks. 

Setting the stove to heat, Bobby glances back over his shoulder. “Gone down into town.”

The clatter of Sam’s spoon against his bowl is far louder than he’d intended it to be. “What? When? Why did he-?”

Bobby sighs as though he’d expected just this reaction and turns to lean back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “Left before you woke up. He’s gone to scout out the lay of the land, fill up on a few things.”

_“Alone?_ Seriously? And what about watches? Are we just forgetting about the Levi that walked on down here yesterday?”

Bobby purses his lips at Sam’s string of questions. “Sam, Dean’s a big boy, he can look after himself.” With an irritated frown, he nods his chin in Lucifer’s direction. “Besides, that archangel can take care of security here. First damned thing we’ve met that can kill those things for good.”

Lucifer turns a considering look on Bobby, then dips his head in recognition of the words. He seems strangely pleased by the hunter’s observation. Sam, refusing to be distracted by the archangel’s curious abilities, doubles down on Bobby instead.

“Dean’s an idiot,” he says flatly. “If he runs into trouble in town how the hell are we going to know about it? Just wait until he doesn’t turn up again?”

From Lucifer’s suddenly contemplative expression it appears the archangel is giving the thought more approving consideration than Sam would like. He ignores him and glares at Bobby instead. 

The older man gives him a narrow-eyed look, and says, “I did tell him, Sam. But you two boys have been playing the fools for so damned long it’d need God Himself to come down and tell you to stop when your mind’s set on something.”

“Some might call that a strength,” Lucifer offers mildly.

“Shut up,” Sam snaps, pushing himself to his feet. “I cannot believe this- right. Fine. I’m going to grab my things. Lucifer, get whatever you need for working on the spell, Bobby, we’re going after him.”

As Sam storms out in search of his shoes and jacket, Bobby and the archangel exchange a long, weary look of shared pain. 

“Better do as he says,” Bobby says grimly.

“Do either of us really have a choice?” Lucifer asks, eyebrows raised.

The old hunter snorts indelicately, and goes to fetch his keys. 

*

  
  


Dean pulls the Impala over about five miles from Elk City, rumbling her across a stony dirt track and into a natural layby beneath the trees. He kills the engine and then sits back to stare out at the forest rising on either side, listening to the silence. When all this is over he’s going to have to give his baby some tender loving care after what he’s been putting her through. All these damned dirt tracks and near off-road driving they’ve been doing, it’s hell on her suspension.

It’s a little past seven in the morning and the tiny settlement he’s heading to will probably only just be up by now. The sky has begun to lighten towards true day and he figures he’ll sit here for a while, long enough for it to get fully light, and then roll on into town and see who’s about. They need a couple of things for the cupboards, at least Sam needs more milk and fruit since he’s been eating his way through his depressingly healthy share of the food at a rate of knots, far more even than the great lug usually does. 

Dean presses his head back into the headrest and closes his eyes. He thinks of his brother, of the way he’d moved in synch with that damned monster out there under the trees, like some kind of weird art school dance routine. Except it had been the most deadly looking interpretative dancing Dean had ever seen, too smooth and full of the potential for violence to be anything but unnerving. And yet for the first time in months Sam had looked focussed. Truly focussed, as though he fit inside his skin again. Once more wearing his body with a confidence Dean had thought lost behind uncertainty and the eerie timidity with which he’s moved the last half a year. 

The thought that it’s the Devil that’s put that confidence back in him makes Dean’s hands tighten painfully hard around the steering wheel. God how he wishes Castiel was here. Cas would know what the hell to do right now, or at least he’d be someone to stand at Dean’s shoulder and share his outrage and distrust. Not that Bobby doesn’t hate the bastard as much as Dean does, just that Cas, Cas would have the backing of something truly righteous about him and god but Dean needs that certainty right now.

He thinks of how Sam’s shoulder had trembled beneath his hand when they’d stood out there in the dark the night before. He doesn’t know what Lucifer had said to him to set him off, but the badly concealed fear in his brother, winding him up tight like barbed wire wrapped around and inside him, makes Dean want to kill. Makes him want the blood of the thing that hurt his little brother. 

“Christ.”

Fuck that archangel. For all the shit he’s put them through, for all the crap he’s pulled in the past, and now this on top of it. The greatest trick the Devil ever played was to convince the world he cared for it, Dean thinks. And then, _ you bastard. I’ll have you yet. _

“Cas, fuck it. If you’re out there, I need you. Where are you, man?”

Nothing but the silence answers him. That echoing quiet is almost worse than any dismissive answer, harder to take than knowing he’s being ignored. Worse, because Dean knows, somewhere deep inside, that this time there’s no answer because Cas doesn’t hear him.

He drives on into town, leaving his prayers rising behind him into the sky where the wind tosses them away, spiralling them unheard back to Earth.

  
  


*

  
  


Lucifer is sitting in the bed of the truck, his face tilted up to the sky, long legs stretched out to brace himself in place. Sam watches him out of the rear view mirror, and Bobby watches Sam out of the corner of his eye. 

“Quit it,” the old hunter says gruffly. 

They’re half an hour out from town and Sam’s been watching the archangel on and off for most of the journey. Bobby has been half tempted to twist the rear view mirror away so he can’t do it any more. Sam blinks at him owlishly, as though he has no idea what’s being spoken of.

“Unless you think he’s going to go crazy back there or leap out and run off into the woods, then just let him be, boy. You’re making me nervous.”

Sam has the grace to look guilty, and turns his eyes away. “Sorry Bobby.”

It’s taken them an hour and a half to get this far, and it was only twenty minutes ago Sam’s phone got any signal. Whether it was pretending or not he doesn’t know, because Dean hasn’t answered his text yet. It’s only now that they’re coming up on the town itself that Sam realises he could have just asked Lucifer to fly them here. It would have been a far more efficient solution, and the fact it’s taken him this long to think of it probably says something about how little he really trusts the angel. If Cas had been here he wouldn’t have hesitated. Frankly if Cas had been here none of this would be necessary but that’s an argument for another time. 

They pull into Elk City a little after nine and Bobby cruises them down the street until he reaches a row of parked trucks outside the local general store. Finally, Sam’s phone blips and he pulls it out, relaxing after a second.

“He’s down at a cafe on the other side of town. I’m telling him we’ll get supplies then meet up.”

Bobby grunts as Sam taps away on his phone, then swings open the door and gets out. After a second, Sam follows him. Lucifer leans over the side of the truck bed and gives him a twist of a smile that tells Sam there’s sarcasm incoming. 

“What a charming little dump this is,” the angel drawls.

“Quit it,” Sam replies, glancing around at the mostly empty street. The town is made up of one long road more or less, lined intermittently by barns and houses. A mining town that’s seen better days, it seems to thrive now on people coming out to hike and escape the world. The people here will be good folk, but they’ll not take kindly to the archangel’s smart mouth and scathing comments. 

Lucifer pouts, just a little, and for a second there’s an echo of the Lucifer of his dreams, petulant and childish. It throws Sam out of his thoughts, and he stares at the archangel with disgust.

“May I get out now, Sam?” Lucifer asks, and there’s definitely a note of insolence to his voice. 

You really hate riding out back, don’t you? Sam thinks, and the ridiculousness of the angel’s affront strikes a note of humour in him that he’d not expected. 

“This is why you’re not allowed up front with us,” he replies shortly. “Yes, get out, follow me, and behave. No scaring the locals, getting us in trouble, or being weird. Just keep your mouth shut, all right?”

“Whatever you say, Sam,” Lucifer murmurs as he vaults over the side of the truck with the feline grace of an angel.

They spend half an hour in the grocery store, picking up bits and pieces and talking to the woman behind the counter. She’s happy to talk, pleased to chat about the recent storm and the roads and the price of goods. Bobby engages her in lazy gossip while Sam takes his time putting together bits and pieces to go in a meal. Lucifer follows him round the store, eyes roving up and down brightly coloured packaging, examining the offers with all the serious intent of the true bargain hunter. It makes Sam want to smack him, even more so when Lucifer raises his eyebrows in innocent puzzlement at Sam’s glare. 

Leaving the store behind, they head on in the truck down the main street, noting the local watering hole and eateries as they go. They stop for gas at a little two pump station where Bobby again chats to the man inside while Sam gets out to stretch his legs. The archangel watches him from the bed of the truck, then leans over the side, to follow his gaze. He spots the Impala parked further down the road in the parking lot of a little cafe and makes a disappointed sound.

“Oh, shut up,” Sam says, though there’s no heat to it. Now they’re here he’s starting to feel just a little bit foolish for dragging them all out, and wondering if maybe he overreacted some. Lucifer’s smirk does little to alleviate his irritation, though he has to admit, albeit privately, that the archangel’s got a point. He does have a tendency to freak out over Dean sometimes. But then it’s mutual, and it’s understandable, right? The pair of them have never gone up against anything like the Levis before - at least with archangels you can holy oil them, trap them or, if you’re quick and lucky, banish them. There are rules that can be used against them. Leviathans though? Not so much.

Lucifer is staring at him unwaveringly, and Sam frowns at him. “What?”

The archangel raises his eyebrows. It takes Sam a few long moments of thought before he realises what’s going on. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he mutters. “You can talk, okay? Just don’t get us into trouble.”

“Now, Sam,” Lucifer drawls. “Why on my Father’s little blue mudball would I ever do that?”

“I thought you liked this mudball,” Sam replies, turning to lean back against the side of the truck. Lucifer settles a little closer beside him. “It’s just the humans living on it you hate.”

The archangel makes a noncommital noise in his throat, then says, “I like you, Sam?”

“Please don’t start this again,” Sam sighs, letting his eyes drift closed. Beside him, the archangel chuckles, rich and deep. The sound is part menace, all amusement, and Sam wonders how he does it, how he manages to make everything sound so ripe with the potential for violence. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Lucifer asks, apparently done with play for now.

“I don’t know,” Sam replies, opening his eyes to look out at the distant hills. “Meet up with Dean, see if he’s heard anything. Then back I guess, depending on what he says.”

The archangel hums a low note in his throat.

“What, Lucifer?”

“I have a request,” the archangel says slowly. The careful caution in his voice makes Sam prick up his ears warily. 

“Go on…”

“There’s a place not too far from here, a sacred place. I’d like to visit it.”

“Why?” Sam frowns.

Lucifer turns his head to regard Sam as though the question, expected or not, is a foolish one. “Well,” he explains slowly. “You know my batteries are low. Sacred places, the real ones, have lots of stored up energy in them. I want to make use of that. Soak up the atmosphere, so to speak.”

It makes sense, and Sam’s read about that type of thing before. Not necessarily in the context of recharging an angel, but certainly about how certain spells only really work if done in specific places of power. It would be entirely like Lucifer to have the capacity to drain a place like that of its energy. The idea of letting him shortcut his recovery period is tempting, but the question is, does Sam want to let him do it? Depriving a community of their sacred spot to fuel a fallen archangel’s hunger seems somehow heretical. But then, so much of Sam’s life has been one unending reel of heresy and damnation. And set next to their need for Lucifer’s assistance can he really deny him this?

Lucifer watches the thoughts play out on Sam’s face, waiting quietly to see which of Sam’s morals will win out. It’s a little irritating because Sam knows already what the answer has to be, and he knows the archangel knows it too.

“A church?” he asks.

Lucifer shakes his head. “Something much older than that.”

“Lucifer…”

“A sacred natural beauty spot. A place where your kind have been inadvertently drawn for all the time you’ve walked the surface of this world. There’s an animal instinct in you to seek out divinity, a dependence on reflected glory that I intend to make use of.”

Sam raises his eyebrows in warning. “No hurting anyone.”

Lucifer does his utmost to look innocent. The expression doesn’t suit him. “I know the rules, Sam. No humans will be harmed in the making of this miracle.”

For a second Sam squints at him. Sometimes Lucifer’s attempts to mimic modern human speech patterns come over as less agreeable, more unnervingly cynical. He’s not entirely sure how much of it is intentional. 

“You know, I prefer it when you’re using formal archangel speak. It’s less off-putting.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow in return. “I’ll bear that in mind, Samuel.”

Before Sam can even get the first word of a retort out, his phone rings, and abandoning any attempt at a reprimand Sam hooks it out of his pocket and answers, turning his back resolutely on the Devil’s sly smile. 

“Dean? Yeah, at the gas station. No, Bobby’s inside paying, doing the usual. I can see the Impala from here. We’ll head over in a minute.”

By the time he’s done with his call, Bobby is already on his way back out of the kiosk. Sam doesn’t give Lucifer’s request an answer, not yet, and refuses to be drawn by the Devil’s meaningful looks. Clearly irritated by this, Lucifer settles back into his previous spot with narrowed eyes, and Sam resolutely ignores him for the duration of the short drive down the road. Even if he’s already made up his mind about what to do, it won’t do any harm to make the archangel wait for once.

  
  


*

  
  


“Nothing,” Dean says, pouring sugar into his coffee. “Not a damned thing.”

“Well,” Sam replies with a quick sideways glance to where the waitress is wiping down a table at the other end of the room. “That’s good, right? We don’t want to find anything here. Last thing we want is more Leviathans turning up.”

Dean grunts and takes a sip of his coffee. “Last thing we want is people seeing our faces too much.”

He accompanies this declaration with a baleful look at Sam who flushes slightly. Bobby gives him a reproachful glance at that and Dean frowns in his direction too.

“It’d be a different story if we’d turned up and bailed your ass out, boy, so quit yer belly aching,” Bobby says.

Dean doesn’t reply, just busies himself with his drink. Then with a nod towards Sam, asks, “You get dinner?”

Sam blinks, “Uh, yeah. I got stuff for mac and cheese. They had some local cheddar, so I thought I’d give it a go.”

“Nice,” Dean says approvingly.

Next to Sam Lucifer sighs and sits back to stare out of the window.

“Sorry if we’re boring you with our mundane human chit chat,” Dean says to him, and the archangel tilts his head at him with a lazy, entirely unfriendly smile. 

“Not at all, Dean. I need Sam to be at full strength so you go ahead and make your dinner plans. Talking of which, what’s the game plan for today, boys?”

“Well,” Dean says evenly. “I figured you’d sit your ass down alone to find that beast and give everyone a break from your bullshit for a day. In the mean time the rest of us will do whatever the hell we want. How does that sound?”

“Dean,” Sam says tiredly, but Lucifer’s smile draws wider and he leans forward.

“Actually, that sounds perfect.”

Dean’s eyes narrow, and even Bobby’s gaze flicks up to rest on the archangel’s face. Sam draws in a breath, entirely unsurprised that Lucifer has found a way to force the issue. Seeing his brother beginning the short wind up to intractability, he decides to intervene.

“He’s found a nearby sacred spot that he wants to go to,” Sam says shortly. “It’ll help him recharge his batteries.”

“What, like a church?”

“A local beauty spot,” Sam replies wearily, already anticipating the look on Dean’s face. Indeed, there it is.

“Are you kidding me right now? You want to go sight-seeing?” Dean is staring daggers at Lucifer, and Sam can see the archangel’s beatific smile from the corner of his eye. 

“It will have a use, Dean,” he grits out. “We need him at full power just as much as I need to be. And unless you have some angel grace hidden away in the trunk we have to give him a chance to get what he needs where he can.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Lucifer says.

“Shut up,” Sam snaps. 

Dean blinks at Lucifer as the archangel winces minutely, and then his expression settles into something satisfied. Sam doesn’t spare the archangel a glance, meeting his brother’s gaze resolutely instead, willing him to accept that this unpleasant little application of his power over the angel means that this whole idea isn’t some kind of trick. Dean looks at him and Sam reads a hard-won approval there, as though his brother’s concerns have been alleviated some. Sam gets it, he really does. No-one here is ignorant of the archangel’s sheer power and potential for destruction, and to have him constantly pushing the boundaries of the summoning’s limitations is grating. Dean needs to trust that Sam has him under control.

“All right, where is it?” Dean asks.

Sam hesitates, then blinks a glance sideways at Lucifer. “Answer him.”

The archangel draws in a breath and lets it go before he deigns to speak. “About ten miles from here, as an angel might fly.”

Dean huffs softly. “And you need how long?”

“Several hours I expect.”

Sam can feel the tension in the archangel’s body as though it’s a physical force radiating out from him. Dean seems unfazed by it, and Bobby is watching on grimly, but it’s making Sam want to snap at Lucifer.  _ If you’d just stop picking fights, we wouldn’t have to do this,  _ he thinks.

“Preferably alone,” Lucifer adds softly.

“You wish,” Dean replies. “You got the map in your bag, Sammy?”

Bobby lifts a finger and points up at the wall where a hiking map of the region hangs. The three men look up at it, but the angel’s gaze remains fixed on Dean. Sam glances at him and doesn’t like the anger he sees there. 

“Where are we going then?” Dean asks.

For a moment Sam thinks the archangel isn’t going to answer. Lucifer shifts his gaze from Dean to Sam and in that look there’s a kind of angry despair that Sam’s never seen in the archangel’s eyes before. It takes him completely by surprise. When Dean makes an irritated noise at the lack of a response, Sam’s voice is softer than he intends it. 

“Lucifer,” he prompts.

With a tightness to his mouth, Lucifer picks a steak knife out of the cutlery pot on the table and, with a deft, economic twist of his fingers, flicks it up at the board so that it sticks point-first and quivering into a spot some distance to the east of where they are. All three of them stare at the shivering knife for a second, then Dean glances quickly to where the waitress is busy over by the till. She doesn’t seem to have heard the dull thunk of the knife hitting home, and Dean breathes out a sharp, relieved breath.

“What the hell?” he snaps, expression somewhere between angry and impressed. 

“You wanted to know where it is, Dean. There you go.”

Sam stands and retrieves the knife before peering at the map. “A hot springs?” he asks warily.

“Sounds great,” Dean says, and the cheer in his voice is tight and just a little bit mean.

The springs are indeed around ten miles away as the crow flies judging by the little legend at the bottom of the map. Sam traces the roads out there with his eyes, thinking it probably closer to twenty or thirty miles to drive, perhaps an hour and a half if the roads are decent. He leans in to squint at the place names, noting how remote it is, and behind him hears Dean discussing the route with Bobby. He can feel Lucifer, silent and furious, pulsing misery at him like a binary star, and the feel of it is like a hand pushing against his back. He wonders what the hell the archangel intends to do out there, and is struck by the sudden memory of being out in the forest with him, alone that first time. The low, soothing drawl of his voice as he’d guided Sam’s meditation, patient and attentive, and strangely, paradoxically calming. How badly that would have gone with Dean hanging around to oversee.

“We can be there by midday easily if we leave now,” his brother is saying.

“No,” says Sam, and turns to sit down again. He feels Lucifer’s eyes snap to him, as clear as if the archangel had reached out and gripped him by the arm. Wiping the end of the steak knife clean, Sam slips it back into the wooden cutlery pot.

“No?” repeats Dean cautiously, unsure where this is heading. 

Sam breathes in deep, then straightens to look at his brother. “No. Lucifer and I will go, you and Bobby go back to the cabin.”

Dean gives him a slow tilt of his head, the same one that always precedes a fight, but Sam returns his gaze steadily. “You wanna tell me why, Sammy?”

“Because it’s a waste of time you coming,” he replies simply. “It doesn’t need all four of us out there. Lucifer’s just going to be sitting there for a few hours doing his thing, and I frankly cannot put up with you bitching for that long when you could be back at the cabin working on research. The internet’s on again, I made sure of it last night.”

Dean’s eyebrows have almost disappeared into his hairline, and Bobby is wearing the round-eyed expression that means he’s trying to work out if he needs to get between them or get out of the way.

“And this is okay...why?” Dean asks. 

“What?” Sam asks, trying and not completely succeeding in keeping the antagonism out of his voice. He’s going for reasonable, he really is, but he knows his brother can hear the undercurrent of irritation running through his tone. 

Dean gives him an exaggerated look of confusion, as though to say, what the hell, Sammy? and Sam returns it as calmly as he can. 

“Trust me, Dean,” he continues. “All of us going out there is a waste of time. Someone needs to be keeping tabs on the phones and out there I’m really sure there’s not going to be any reception.”

Dean leans slowly back in his chair, folding his arms carefully and gives Sam a long, considering look. 

“And how come it’s suddenly all right to be splitting the party now you and the feathered dickhead here want to go off on your own?”

Sam gives him a tight smile - it’s a fair point, but he knows deep in his heart with a level of certainty he cannot explain, that if Dean tags along with them they may as well just not go. Lucifer’s animosity towards him will ruin any chance they have of getting things done and honestly Sam doesn’t have the patience to put up with their bickering back and forth for hours on end. 

“He’s got a point, Sam,” Bobby says cautiously. “You said yourself there’s not going to be any cell signal out there.”

“Exactly,” Dean says. “How are we supposed to reach you if we get jumped again by Leviathans and have to clear out?”

Lucifer’s attention has been locked onto Sam for the last few minutes with all the heavy intensity of a fascinated angel, but now he shifts that laser gaze onto Dean, saying softly, “Well, you could always pray to me, Dean. I’d hear you.”

If they had been anywhere other than in a tiny cafe with a civilian in clear line of sight, Sam knows his brother would have thrown a punch then. Even with the waitress too close for easy explanations he can tell from the twitch of Dean’s muscles that he almost does it anyway. 

“Dean,” Sam says quickly. 

It takes a second before the rage fades from his brother’s eyes, enough that he’s got himself back under control, and then he smiles coldly at the archangel. “The day I pray to you, asshole, is the day hell freezes over.”

“Hm.” Lucifer’s smile is considering. “Not as unlikely a possibility as you might think.”

“Stop it,” Sam hisses, furiously. A flicker of a shiver passes across Lucifer’s shoulders, and then he leans back, but that infuriating smile doesn’t leave his face.

“Give me your phone, Sam,” the archangel says. 

“What?”

“Your cellular phone. The little device you use for communicating with each other,” Lucifer says, turning to him. With a confused glance at the others, Sam hands it over. The archangel looks at it for a second or two, frowning in distaste, then hands it back. “There you go.”

“Did you just…?” Sam looks at his phone in confusion, then back up at Lucifer. The archangel is smiling at him contentedly, as smug as the proverbial cat with the cream. “Lucifer, did you just...re- uh, what did you just do? I have signal. I didn’t have signal before?”

“And now you do, Sam.”

“Wait a second,” Dean interrupts. “You can- can whammy our phones to have signal?” 

Lucifer turns his gaze almost reluctantly from Sam to him. “I believe I’ve told you before, Dean, there’s a lot you don’t know about angels.”

“What the hell?” Sam exclaims. “Why didn’t you just do that earlier?”

Lucifer turns back to him, apparently surprised by the question. “You didn’t ask, Sam.”

The look Sam gives him is decidedly unimpressed, eyes narrowed and mouth a thin, tight line. Lucifer almost hesitates at his expression, then Bobby breaks the moment. “You do that for all our phones?”

Lucifer throws him a glance, seemingly reluctant to look away from Sam.

“Do it,” Sam says.

The archangel winces. “It would be better if I didn’t, Sam. It might make them trackable by... other beings.”

“Wait a second,” Dean says. “If that’s the case, then what’s stopping it being a problem for Sam?”

Now Lucifer looks at him as though he’s stupid. “The fact they’ll find me right next to him would be the obvious drawback for anything trying it. You two? Well, I’m guessing you’re less inclined to have me following you around just to play babysitter.”

Sam is watching the archangel closely. Lucifer is lying, he can feel it. Or perhaps not lying, but certainly not telling the whole truth. He risks a glance down at his phone, finding the signal bars full, and wonders if it’s real or just an illusion to make it look safe to let them go off alone.

“It’s real,” Lucifer says softly, and in the seconds he’s been looking at his screen, Sam realises the archangel has turned back to him. He frowns, but doesn’t say anything. Admitting out loud that the angel is reading his mind doesn’t seem like a good way to diffuse this situation.

“You two will be able to reach us if you need to,” Lucifer says, still watching Sam. “And Sam can check in with you whenever he feels like it.”

There’s a long, tense pause. Dean’s attention is on Sam too, gauging his little brother’s reaction, and perhaps his ability to keep a leash on the monster sitting next to him. What he’s seeing doesn’t seem to be filling him with confidence. 

“That works for me,” Sam says suddenly. “Go back to the cabin, guys. You know where we’re going, and if you can’t reach us, well. You know where we are.”

“Sam…”

“Dean.”

It’s Bobby that gets up first. He picks up his rucksack and reaches into his pocket to drop a bunch of notes on the tabletop.

“We’ll leave you the truck. Dean, come on. You can give me a ride back.”

At times like this Sam is filled with gratitude for Bobby’s no-nonsense attitude. Sometimes it takes the old hunter’s clear-eyed lack of theatrics to see through his and his brother’s private emotional minefield, and if they’re lucky, guide the pair of them through it too. Dean looks up at him and then back to Sam, and it’s as though he makes to speak, then thinks better of it. His mouth thins into an unhappy grimace, then he shrugs and shakes his head.

“Do what you gotta do, but check in on the hour. Be back by eight or I’m coming out looking for you.”

“Yes, mom,” Sam says, and gets a narrow-eyed look in return. But he’s glad of his brother’s capitulation, and, now it’s resolved, glad of his protectiveness too. Just as long as he keeps it in check. 

“Don’t forget,” Lucifer reminds him, looking up at Dean and miming with his fingers a telephone to his ear. “Call us if you need us.”

The look Dean gives the archangel could strip paint from the walls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say I've never been to any of the places in this fic, and half of them you can't even use the little streetview guy on Googlemaps to look at. So don't take the descriptions of them literally. They're interpretations _based on_ places I can pick off a map to keep the travel times in the region of accurate.
> 
> Next time, the hot springs/a few revelations. Hope you're enjoying this so far. :]


	13. The Hot Springs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and a movie? Not even close.

Sam drives and for the first time Lucifer lounges up front with him. The archangel sits with the window rolled down, fingers trailing through the air, and it’s a damned good job the day is sunny or Sam would be freezing his ass off right now. The road they’re on is small and dusty, winding its way upwards through a landscape alternately thick with pines and pale with scrubby grassland. It’s beautiful and about as far off the beaten track as it’s possible to get. 

“So what was that crap with the phones?” 

Sam’s checked his cell a couple of times now, and each glance has told him that whatever the archangel’s done it’s holding true. He still wants the whole story though, picking at that certainty he’d felt back in the diner that the angel hadn’t been telling the whole truth. He has no idea if Dean and Bobby had felt it too, or if it’s something only he’d worked out, but something about the angel’s mannerisms had told him there was more to the story.

Lucifer doesn’t look at him. He lets his head lean out of the window just slightly so that the breeze catches at his hair and flicks it back up over his forehead. The sun makes his skin seem tanned and healthy, as though the touch of it agrees with him.

“What crap?” he murmurs.

“Oh come on. The whole 'tracking' thing. You don’t honestly expect us to believe that, do you?”

Lucifer does look at him then. “I wasn’t lying, Sam.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t telling the truth, either.”

Lucifer is silent, watching him with curiosity. Sam glances at him then laughs shortly at the expression on the angel’s face. “I could feel you doing it, Lucifer.”

The archangel’s lips are parted slightly, and he’s regarding Sam with such a look of fascination that Sam struggles for a moment to divide his attention safely between angel and road. There’s no-one but them out here, which is lucky because right now the look he’s getting is one he wants to read properly.

Maybe the archangel intends to lie again, and then thinks better of it, for he makes to speak and clearly changes his mind about what he’s going to say. “I was perhaps allowing a certain level of leeway with the truth,” he admits grudgingly. “But what I said wasn’t untrue. Higher beings could use what I’d do to track them down.”

“But?”

“But it’s unlikely.”

Sam nods, his eyes back on the road. In truth he’s not surprised by this. In the time between discovering the summoning spell, going to visit Anisa Virani, and coming back to cast it, he’d put an awful lot of thought into all the many and varied ways a being of awesome celestial power might try to make wriggle room for itself within the confines of the binding. Telling the truth but not all of it is exactly the sort of thing Sam had expected. After all, he’s dealt with enough demons over the years to know the way their minds work. Hell, if he were in Lucifer’s position he’d probably use exactly the same tactics too.

“It would have been an unnecessary drain on my energy to make the same changes for them too, and to maintain them,” the archangel offers, as if Sam had asked.

“Okay,” Sam says simply.

They drive on in silence for several minutes, Sam sweeping the truck around long, sun-dappled curves in the road, enjoying the easy drive for what it is. Even with the ever-present press of world-ending drama that seems to accompany them their whole lives, it’s still possible to just sit back sometimes and appreciate the sheer beauty of the thing they’re trying so damned hard to save.

“You don’t seem as angry as I thought you might be,” Lucifer muses eventually.

Sam shrugs. “Guess you don’t know me as well as you thought.” 

He doesn’t let himself check to see the archangel’s expression, but even so he feels Lucifer’s considering gaze on him for a long time after.

  
  


*

  
  


The hot springs are nestled deep in the forest at the end of a long, dusty road. Sam pulls up in the parking lot out front and leans forward over the steering wheel to look out at the three storey wood panelled building. It doesn’t look particularly sacred to him, and when he turns to query Lucifer he finds the archangel staring balefully out at the signs of human civilisation as though the cheerful welcome board and faded-paint fencing were installed to personally insult him.

“I’ll do the talking,” Sam says quickly.

It’s surprisingly easy, even with the archangel hovering like a thundercloud in the background, for Sam to gain access to the pools round the back. He pays the fee, accepts directions to where they can change, then heads out back to investigate. Lucifer trails him like an angry shadow, and as soon as the owner has disappeared back inside Sam stops and leans in.

“Dude, seriously. Cut it out. I can feel the hairs on my neck standing up right now, you are giving off serious psychotic angel vibes.”

Lucifer makes what can best be described as a growling sound in the back of his throat, and Sam leans away, blinking. 

“You humans…” the archangel breathes, and the eye he casts over their surroundings is bitter and derisive. 

As far as Sam can tell it’s a standard hot springs. The pool is large and steaming gently even in the midday sun, and surprisingly there’s barely any scent of sulphur, mineral water or not. The place is screened for privacy on all sides by tall wooden fences, although what’s out there in the woods to watch this far from civilisation Sam doesn’t particularly want to guess. A handful of deck chairs and loungers are scattered around the concrete edge of the pool, with a few sad-looking pool noodles stacked up against the wall of the main building. To Sam’s unpractised eye it looks like any remote hotel swimming pool in the back of beyond.

“Is this...it?” he asks.

Beside him, Lucifer sighs sharply, then looks upslope towards where the trees grow thick and dark. Sam follows his gaze, remembering from the owner’s brief introductory spiel that the actual sources of the spring lie further up the mountain, the water gathered and piped down to these pools in a modern, controlled equivalent to how the water has gathered here for thousands of years.

“Let’s take a walk,” Lucifer says.

It’s a twenty minute hike to the source of the springs, along a tiny animal track that leads them up a steep incline between the trees. Sam follows Lucifer in silence, letting the archangel lead them by whatever sixth sense he’s using to track down what he needs. As far as Sam can tell the place is pretty, but otherwise unremarkable. He’s mildly disappointed really, he’d expected to be able to feel some kind of tingle on the air, or sense of sacred stillness, but all he’s sensing is an increasingly potent tang of damp sulphur the further up the track they go.

By the time Lucifer stops the scent of sulphur is strong enough to make Sam wrinkle his nose. The sound of trickling water is pleasant on the air though, and the sun makes the open rockface hot enough to bask on. Sam squints upwards at the line of trees a little way further up and then turns to face the archangel. Lucifer has gone to one knee to reach down between a narrow crevice in the rocks where the gentle notes of running water can be heard. When he pulls his hand back his fingers are wet and Sam watches in surprise as he presses his fingertips to his forehead and then to his lips in anointment. 

Awkwardly, Sam watches, feeling as though he’s intruding somehow. After a minute or so of silent contemplation Lucifer pushes himself to his feet. He looks around at the bare rock shining in the clearing and then turns to Sam.

“I’ll be here for an hour or two, perhaps more.”

“Do you, uh..?" Sam asks, haltingly. _Need anything?_ he'd meant to say. But clearly not because the angel's body language is closed and there's no mistaking the dismissal in his words. Still, it seems odd to him to just abandon the archangel up here, especially as he has no real idea what he intends to do. "...I’ll leave you to it?”

Lucifer nods, then glances back down the track the way they’d come up. “I’m led to believe this place has an outstanding hot spring-fed pool to enjoy,” he says dryly. 

In the end Sam gives in to his discomfort and allows the archangel his privacy. As curious as he is he also finds himself unwilling to linger, as though to do so would be unspeakably intrusive. He’s not sure where the feeling comes from, but since he feels much the same way about Lucifer watching him sleep he kinda gets it. Of course, the two aren’t remotely equivalent and he ends up arguing back and forth with himself in his head as he makes his way back down the track, not entirely convinced that he shouldn't have pushed the issue.

To his disappointment he realises that he doesn’t have his sports kit with him in his rucksack, even though he usually carries at least a spare shirt. Fortunately for him the people at the desk seem plenty accustomed to forgetful long-distance travellers, and he purchases himself a towel and a pair of cheap trunks for a handful of cash. After that he has nothing to do but grab the book he did bring with him and enjoy the delights of the local hot spring. 

Lucifer comes back down the mountain some time close to four in the afternoon. Sam, dozing on the edge of the pool with his feet dangling in the water and the book across his stomach, notices him coming down the path between the trees by the tickling he feels at the edge of his perception. It’s the feeling of no longer being alone that does it, itching across his skin like static electricity, there and then gone. For a second he follows the archangel’s slow progress down the hill, watching him lope back with an easy, languid stride. Once he disappears from view Sam sets his book aside and then pushes off into the water to wash the strangeness from his skin.

Sam is warming himself in the centre of the pool when Lucifer comes through the gate in the fence. The archangel throws him a lazy nod, like a cat might greet an old friend, and then crosses to the end where the steps are. He looks relaxed and at ease with himself, self-satisfied and smug in the way only an angel, particularly Lucifer, can be. Sam watches him curiously as the angel begins to strip, casting aside his vessel’s clothes and tossing them onto a nearby sun lounger. He blinks when Lucifer shucks out of his underpants and turns his gaze aside, not sure what to make of it. Of course, he knows from Castiel and, more relevantly, his own experience with Lucifer that angels view nakedness with quite a different eye than humans in general.

Unselfconsciously Lucifer pads to the steps that lead down into the pool. Sam hears the slosh of the water as he enters and looks up in time to see the archangel wade out a few steps then pause to tilt his face up to the sun and close his eyes. In the afternoon sunlight he looks healthier than Sam has ever seen him. Already a large, fit man, Lucifer’s vessel looks lean and hale in a way he never has before, as though the archangel is filling him out with his strength, moulding him into something stronger and just a little more than human. Surprised, Sam turns away, uncertain of his own reaction. 

The pool itself is built around an old pond, and as such the bottom in the centre is mostly bare rock. Sam, even with his height, finds himself immersed almost up to the middle of his chest, toes carefully keeping him in place on top of one of the taller rocks. With a small push off he swims to where the footing is a little more secure and the water a shade shallower, slicking back his wet hair with both hands. With the fading of afternoon into the gradual slide towards evening the heat has mostly gone out of the day and the air is chill against the greater warmth of the water. Behind him he hears the lapping of liquid as the angel moves towards him and all of a sudden he’s struck by a strange self-consciousness that holds him in place.

There’s silence behind him and for a second Sam wonders what the archangel is doing, then he catches the reflection of him in the water and feels again that sudden buzz of static across his skin. He frowns and turns to find Lucifer scant feet from him, still and silent as the water ripples around him. When Sam’s eyes find his a smile just touches the angel’s lips, something sleepy and satisfied. It’s not the predatory look that Sam had feared and something about it makes the knot of tension in his chest ease and then fade.

“I could feel you watching me,” Sam says. 

“Hm,” Lucifer hums, his voice just a little distant.

Sam frowns and cocks his head at him, taking a second to really look at the archangel. 

“Lucifer,” he asks cautiously. “Are you… _high?”_

The archangel laughs, a brilliant bolt of amusement in the otherwise quiet of their surroundings. The reaction takes Sam by surprise, enough that he laughs just a little himself. Cautiously, he takes a step towards the archangel who has sunk down into the water to float on his back. Sam blinks and directs his gaze carefully for modesty’s sake, then stops just within arm’s reach of the angel, unsure what the protocol is for angels high on sacred spot energy being allowed to go swimming. He suspects that high or not the archangel still can’t drown. 

“I’m not ‘high,’ Sam,” Lucifer chuckles, and at Sam’s unconvinced look his mouth pulls into a grin.

“Uh, not convinced.”

“I assure you,” the archangel says, grin still in place but voice firm. “I’m just soaking in the atmosphere.”

“Hm,” Sam says, pushing off sideways to keep pace with the archangel’s floating form. “I’m taking it that it went well, then?”

Still on his back, Lucifer closes his eyes and his grin settles into a satisfied smile. “It’s but a drop in the ocean, Sam. But to a thirsty man a drop of water in the desert is better than a sack full of diamonds.”

“Uh, sure,” Sam allows. 

Lucifer cracks open one eye and squints at Sam. “Did you remember to check in with your brother?”

Sam rolls his eyes, “God, please. Don’t you start. Yes, I did. They’re fine.”

“I would very much hate for Dean to worry,” Lucifer says solicitously, which just makes Sam snort.

“Listen,” he says. “How much longer do you need here?”

The archangel breathes out a long, satisfied breath and closes his eye again. “I could be done now, if you need me to be, Sam.”

“Well,” Sam hesitates. “If you are, I’m kinda hungry, and it’s an hour and bit back to town, so…”

“Still hungry, Sam?” Lucifer asks, and now he has both eyes open, and has let himself float back to upright so that his feet are on the rocks. He gives Sam an interested, almost clinical look that makes Sam feel just a little bit exposed.

“Yeah, well, some of us can’t survive on scenery and holy water. Not that this is actual holy water... you know what I mean.” 

Sam shakes his head and Lucifer takes a step closer. “Oh, but it is, Sam. This here is the real deal. Genuine sacred spot holy water, going back generations of your kind. My brother smote the earth here with his staff back when everyone was so much younger and more innocent, and blessed it with his regard.” 

Sam looks down at the water, blue beneath the clear autumn sky, and warm with the heat of the earth. Then he looks up and around at the concrete path and the faded deckchairs and something in him feels awful suddenly. 

“Oh. Right. Well, great, I guess.”

Lucifer blinks at him, waiting for Sam to ride out the chain of thoughts and emotions that come with the revelation that he’s been lounging in a sacred place using it to warm his feet while he reads a book.

“I guess we should get going,” Sam says eventually. He meets the archangel’s blue eyes and sees something old and terribly weary looking back at him.

“Let’s,” the archangel replies.

  
  


*

Sam calls Dean from the parking lot of the steak house they find back in Elk City. He leaves the archangel lounging inside in a corner booth, eyes roving across the dark wood panelling and framed photos that line the walls. The place is a monument to the town’s past, to its glory days when the mines were fruitful, and now to the hunting parties and wilderness hikers that come through. He seems fascinated by it all in a disgusted, slightly squeamish way.

When Sam returns to the table, pushing his phone back into his pocket it’s to find food already waiting for him. He looks at it in surprise, steak and fries, onion rings, and a few sides he’d never have picked out for himself. Lucifer shrugs.

“You were taking too long. I ordered for you.”

“O...kay? Well, thanks, I guess.”

Lucifer blinks a lazy acknowledgement and Sam sits down to eat. To his relief the archangel doesn’t insist on watching him the whole time, instead turning his attention to the rest of the patrons. The place is busy, even this early, with people meeting up and getting down to the serious business of drinking for the evening. The warmth and buzz of human company feels good after so long in isolation, and Sam throws a speculative glance over at the pool table across the room.

“How’s Dean?” Lucifer asks, and it’s clear from his tone he couldn’t care less what the answer is. “Not been eaten yet, I take it.”

Sam looks up at him over a bite of steak and chews for a long time before he answers. “Dean’s fine. Thanks for asking.”

The archangel grunts and doesn’t take his eyes off a pair of big guys laughing over something by the bar. Sam resists the urge to roll his eyes. At least he's trying, he supposes. 

“So,” Sam says. “How is it that you can kill Leviathans?”

If he’s surprised by the question, Lucifer doesn’t show it. He watches a woman come in and join the men at the bar, greeting the pair of them like she’s known them for years. Without taking his eyes off them he shrugs.

“Killing monsters was part of my job, Sam.”

Sam feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Are you for real?”

Sighing, Lucifer turns finally and faces him, folding his arms on the tabletop and leaning in. “Is that so hard to believe? I’m an angel, Sam. Back before all...this…” He accompanies the words with a wave of his fingers at the surrounding bar. “I was a loyal servant of my Father, and my Father made it my business to go out and kill in His name.”

Sam chews a fry slowly as he considers this. “But angel blades don’t work on them.”

The look Lucifer gives him is all disappointment, enough that Sam feels vaguely affronted by it. 

“Archangel, Sam.”

“Right. Of course.”

“I’m the Lightbringer, Sam,” Lucifer says, and in his voice there’s the hint of an aeons-old pride. “You think I can’t handle a few dirty little shadows? Teeth or not, they’ll all burn for me.”

Sam snorts, but inside he has to admit he’s just a little bit impressed. The Leviathans have given them no end of trouble so far, probably the hardest things they’ve ever come up against, and they’ve done Heaven and Hell now. It seems crazy to say it but Sam would much prefer to be taking on angels than the seemingly unkillable Leviathans. 

He ponders this as he makes his way through the food Lucifer has ordered for him. The angel may have gone a little overboard on the sides, but honestly Sam won’t be leaving anything spare. It seems like the binding spell is still drawing hard on his energy reserves, and it’s manifesting as an almost continual hunger that’s driving him slightly up the wall. Still, if hunger’s the worst thing he has to contend with then he probably shouldn’t complain. 

“So,” Lucifer says carefully, and Sam flicks a glance up at him warily. The archangel has the look on his face that says he’s measuring his words deliberately, wary of how they’ll be taken. Sam chews a little slower, and seeing this Lucifer leans back in his chair. “Don’t be angry, Sam.”

Sam puts his fork down and glares at the archangel. “What have you done?” he asks flatly.

“Nothing!” Lucifer exclaims quietly. “Well, not recently…” 

Seeing that this line of humour is doing him no favours the archangel’s expression turns from mischievous to sombre in a split-second, fast enough that it sends a thrill of alarm through Sam’s body. Gravely, the angel fixes him with a look of such intensity he feels almost pinned in place, and asks softly, “How are the dreams going, Sam?”

It’s like someone has come up behind him and doused him in ice-cold water. Sam takes a sharp breath in without even meaning to, unable to hide the reaction. Realising he’s given himself completely away he lowers his head, and then very deliberately carries on eating. He hears Lucifer sigh gently.

“Sam…”

“I told you,” he replies curtly, in between bites. “I haven’t dreamed of the creature since before I summoned you. I’ll tell you if I do.”

There’s a beat of silence between them in which Sam concentrates on chasing the last of the ketchup round his plate with an onion ring. 

“I wasn’t talking about those dreams, Sam.”

He freezes because he can’t help it. Of all the things he’s told the Devil, that he still dreams of how he’d been tortured by him in the Cage is not one of them. Those memories, those dreams, even though Lucifer must know every second of their content, are not something he can voice without opening up a whole deluge of hurt and pain and rage and fear, all twisted up into one horrific tangle that worms inside his gut and threatens to tear him apart with its ferocity. He can feel his breath hitching up into the first stages of panic, and the food he’s eaten sits in his stomach like a lead weight.

“You motherfucker,” Sam says, and is horrified to hear the shake in his voice.

When he looks up to meet Lucifer’s gaze he finds the Devil watching him with such despair in his cold blue eyes that Sam is momentarily shocked out of his spiral of horror. He stares at the angel, at the creature sitting across from him, silent and inhumanly still, and what he sees is jarring and unreal enough that it makes him gasp, then cough and turn away to get his head under control. There’s anger in him, and fear, and both those emotions are at war with the feeling that something is desperately, intrinsically wrong with all this.

“You know something isn’t right here, Sam,” Lucifer says, and the smoothness of his voice, the depth of it, sends a shiver up Sam’s spine. He thinks, wildly, that he’s going to be sick. 

“Stop,” he gasps, breathing hard and deep to get a grip on his stomach’s rebellion.

Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t specify what he wants Lucifer to stop doing that the archangel keeps talking. “I hear echoes of what you dream, Sam. In the night I hear you screaming to yourself. I feel your fear and your pain and your rage. I want to make it stop, Sam. I want you to know that I cannot lie to you, that even if I could _I would not._ ”

Sam grips the corner of the table so hard it hurts, the edge jabbing into the scar on his palm in blinding, redemptive pain that offers him the salvation he’s been clinging to for weeks now. The archangel is a looming shadow across from him, his eyes bright in the gloom of their dimly lit corner.

“What you see in your dreams is not me, Sam. _It’s not me._ ”

“Then what the hell is it?!” 

His voice comes out strangled, a desperate gasp of breath that’s mostly lost beneath the heavy music thumping from the jukebox across the room. Lucifer hears and understands him anyway.

“The Cage,” the archangel says. “It twists everything and everyone exposed to it. It’s still working on you even though you’re no longer inside it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sam replies, and the words are hollow. He can’t stand the sadness in the archangel’s eyes, the unnatural concern of him, the empathy that only a real archangel should ever wear, the kind that don’t really exist and never have. With horror he realises that there are tears on his cheek, and he ducks his head in shame, covering his eyes with one hand to disguise the evidence from both the angel and anyone looking their way.

He’s going mad. He’s completely fucking losing it. _This must be PTSD,_ a small, clinical part of him says. _It’s not uncommon in trauma victims._ Back and forth, okay and then not, and with such a thin, brittle line in between the two states. It is completely shocking to him how little control over his own emotions he seems to have.

Lucifer is silent. Sam had expected him to continue wheedling, to come at him again with his promises and his cool, reasonable words of persuasion, but he doesn’t. He just sits there across the table, so quiet that Sam almost wonders if he’s gotten up and left. It takes him a few minutes to get himself back under control, to let the tears dry enough that he can pretend that he never shed them even though their salt is still tightening the skin of his cheeks. Then he sniffs, and, mouth tight, begins to finish his food, movements resolute and determined. He’s going to finish these goddamned onion rings if it’s the only good and sensible thing he does tonight.

“Just because they’re false, it doesn’t make them any less real. I want you to know that I understand that.”

Sam pauses, then looks at Lucifer. The archangel still has that same, sad expression on his face, as though he’s seen all the evils of the world and despises it for them. Sam’s seen it in him before, has felt it from the inside out. There’d been a time when the two of them had known each other’s minds backwards and forwards, through and beyond, when they’d coiled together soul on grace on soul, when Sam could have accurately predicted the angel's actions and his reasoning simply because of the unavoidable intimacy of their relationship. It's an understanding of one another that he hadn't realised he'd forgotten, so usurped had it been by the vulgar malice of his hallucinations, and in one shocking moment Sam sees with absolute clarity that the archangel is not lying to him.

Lucifer’s gaze shifts from sadness to something far more complex and difficult to read as he sees that realisation dawn. It could be relief, but it’s not sharp enough for that, and for a second Sam almost laughs, for the absurdity of it, for the almost comical look of surprise it lends the angel. As though this understanding he’s been fighting for has been so long coming he’d never actually expected to see it. 

“Why do I see you when I’m not asleep?” Sam asks him abruptly. There’s a curious feeling of light-headedness in him now, or perhaps simply a sense of disconnection so strong that his body is no longer firing correctly on all cylinders. He’s not sure, he doesn’t fully care. The numbing feeling is nice.

Lucifer’s expression takes on a note of caution and he turns his head sideways just a fraction in query. _Interesting,_ Sam thinks absently. He hasn’t got any idea what I’m talking about.

“I see you. I speak to you. You speak to me. It’s like you’re right there.”

“I am right here, Sam,” Lucifer says carefully, and Sam shakes his head sharply in dismissal. He’s not making sense and he gets that, it’s just that Lucifer’s been in his head so damned long now he sometimes forgets what he has and hasn’t said to him.

“Before. Before I summoned you, you were there. You were-” his breath catches and he forces himself to swallow, to breathe easily, or at least not to choke. 

Lucifer is shaking his head slowly. “That wasn’t me, Sam.”

“Then who was it!”

The archangel holds his gaze and at the periphery of his vision, some hunter’s sixth sense tells Sam that his outburst has caused a few heads to turn their way. He doesn’t care. Right now he has more important things to find out. 

Lucifer’s lips part, and then he stops. He’s unsure, Sam can read it in him. Either doesn’t want to guess or simply doesn’t like the possibilities, he can’t tell.

“It’s possible that the effects of the Cage were so extreme that they were causing you to hallucinate,” the archangel says slowly. “I-”

He stops again, and Sam gives a shake of his head. “You what?”

Lucifer frowns. “It wasn’t me, I could not have reached you. I...tried, Sam. It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, you tried?”

“I wanted to talk to you again.”

Sam stares at him, aghast. The archangel looks as though Sam’s dragged the words out of him with one of the Cage’s rusty metal hooks. “You fucking what?”

For just a second Lucifer lets his eyes slip closed. When he opens them again they’re a pale flare of blue in the gloom, unnaturally bright and all of a sudden Sam wonders where the red has gone. It seems like such a strange thing to have forgotten.

“I was lonely, I wanted to talk to you.”

On some deep, primal level, completely unconnected to the rational, moral part of him, Sam gets it. He understands because he remembers the Cage that had contained them as well as the archangel that had been trapped there with him. While Lucifer had been a whirling vortex of howling fury, the Cage had been the ever-present darkness of the void, as ravenous as famine and darker than despair. Perhaps an archangel might have felt the gravity of its pull less strongly than a mere human soul, but Sam doubts it. Sometimes he’d thought a part of Lucifer’s screaming had simply been to keep that voracious silence at bay.

That understanding is something primordial, the part of him that still fears the dark and huddles close to the fire to keep the monsters away. Oh, he can call himself a hunter and tell himself and others that he’s the one the demons fear, but when held against the vast, unending drag of the Cage he understands his true place in the hierarchy of the universe and the Powers that live in it.

Sam blinks, assaulted by memory. Something ticks over in his mind, worrying at the puzzle of his dreams while a part of him remembers that bitter, unrelenting vastness and finds that his tiny human brain is no longer capable of fully comprehending it. Out here, up here in the physical world of Earth, he’s no longer able to remember the depth of the darkness, just the way it had made him feel - terrified and alone and made of despair. 

“Sam?”

He realises that his eyes have lost focus and that he’s staring at the archangel, or through him, seeing something else entirely. Again he wonders how badly the Cage had affected Lucifer. Not just his pride, but the shocking thought that there would be nothing else, ever again, except that unending, ceaseless void. And then he wonders what else there _could_ have been, if fire and blood and damnation are somehow not the truth.

“What exactly is it you think I should be seeing, if not you?” he asks quietly.

Lucifer looks as unreadable as he ever does when he’s not pricking spite into Dean’s skin, or puffing up with all the magnificent pride of an ancient celestial being of awesome pedigree. When his mask of confident superiority isn’t cracking beneath the thrust of Sam’s gaze. Sam, the only person who’s ever seen him from the inside out. Sam, who thinks he must be one of the few beings in all Creation to ever have gotten the honest truth out of the Devil.

In the archangel’s eyes there’s a flicker of something like desire, like he’s going to say something genuine, like finally he’s going to admit to a truth he’s so far kept concealed. Sam tilts his head in query, and suddenly the Devil’s gaze shutters, and the moment is gone.

“I think you need to remember on your own, Sam.”

“Why? Why not just tell me?”

Lucifer sits back in his chair, and pauses momentarily to look at him. “Would you even believe me if I did?”

Sam supposes that he has a point. “I’d try,” he says, then has to clear his throat when his voice almost cracks on the words.

For just a second Lucifer looks surprised, then the reaction is gone, tucked away behind his customary mask of calm. Sam wonders if he believes him. He wonders if he believes _himself,_ and then as soon as he thinks it he knows that he would. He’d try, anyway.

“Finish your dinner, Sam,” Lucifer says, so quietly the words are almost lost beneath the jukebox’s caterwauling. 

There’s so much left he could say, but in the end Sam holds his tongue. Despite a day’s rest at the hot springs he feels stretched inside, all the emotion wrung out of him until there’s nothing left to feel, nor to come back at the archangel with. But the rage in him is gone too, bled out finally by his acceptance of Lucifer’s honesty. It’s left him feeling strangely aimless inside, and at the same time steadier than he has been in weeks. 

He does as the archangel instructs, finishing his food with only the music to listen to, and later when he drives them back through the swiftly falling dark to the cabin they do so in silence, Sam full of a strange and fragile peace, the archangel dozing quietly across from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just going to note, I _think_ Lucifer's red eyes are a S11 construct? I can't quite recall but I feel like he always had blue in S5. Anyway. Blue eyes for S5, red for Hallucifer is what I'm going with.


	14. Exodus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A change of plan, a dream, and a direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if AO3 makes it clear I've posted 2 chapters at once, so to be clear, here's the second of this update's chapters.

Dean manages to keep enough control of himself not to meet his brother at the door, but from the look on Bobby’s face when they return he’s been climbing the walls all day. 

“Well, I hope you’ve had a more productive day than we have,” is how he greets Sam when they get inside. 

It’s just after nine and the forest outside is fully dark. Sam had been impressed again by how well the cabin is screened from the road as he’d struggled to spot the entrance to the dirt track. He throws his backpack down on the settee as Lucifer heads straight for the back room. Dean watches the archangel go with raised eyebrows, then turns to look at Sam.

“What’s his problem?”

In truth, Sam doesn’t know, so he just shrugs. They hadn’t said a single word to one another on the drive back, but it hadn’t been a cold silence, more of a peaceful one with neither of them needing to fill it. 

“You eaten?” he asks instead.

“I can cook, bitch.”

“All right, just asking. You do the mac?”

Dean’s satisfied smirk is confirmation enough. “Oh yeah. Some left if you want it.”

“Nice.”

“If you two boys are done gassing like housewives,” Bobby interrupts. “How _did_ the hot springs go?”

Again, Sam shrugs and takes a seat on the settee. “They...went. According to Lucifer the place really is some kind of sacred hot spot and he, well...” Sam peers around Bobby in the direction of the back room. He can’t see the archangel, but he hasn’t closed the door behind himself either. “He seemed to get a, I dunno, a kick out of it, some kind of high almost, so I think it worked some.”

Dean’s face has twisted into a look of pained disbelief. “Well, that’s just great. While you and he were up there getting stoned, me and Bobby got absolutely nothing. No signs, no omens, not even the damned Levis are doing anything they shouldn’t be. Whole network’s gone silent as the grave.”

Sam raises his eyebrows and tries for a positive expression. “Well, at least quiet is better than active right now. On all fronts.”

“Too damned quiet,” Dean mutters. “You want a beer?”

With the evening rapidly fading away, the three of them sit around the table in the living area, beers in hand and laptops open to the news. There’s nothing, just as it’s been for the last three weeks. Sam’s thinking of that, of how short a time it’s been since he summoned the Devil back into his life and how it already feels as though there’s never been a time when he wasn’t there. And perhaps that’s closer to the truth than he’s ready to admit.

“How the hell are we supposed to track this thing if there’s no news?” Dean shakes his head in disgust. “We’re just sat here waiting for something to happen.”

And that is when the lights snap out and the interior of the cabin is plunged into darkness. There’s a split-second where everyone freezes, before instinct takes over and Bobby is going for the shotgun next to his chair, Dean and Sam on their feet, putting their backs to each other, guns already in hand. It could be nothing, it could be a faulty connection, but Bobby and Sam had fixed up the solar panels days ago and they know the battery levels are good.

“Generator’s off,” Bobby says into the darkness. 

Sam has only enough time to scrabble for the torch left beneath the coffee table before the front and back doors are kicked in by creatures with the type of strength that’s nothing to do with human. They come in fast and hard, and the way they barely flinch when the guns go off says more about what they are than anything else. At first, from the sheer speed and unrelenting determination of them, Sam assumes they’re angels. But then one of the shapes rears back with a scream as Bobby’s borax shell hits it and suddenly it’s clear what they’re up against. 

The darkness around them is almost entirely complete, the only light coming from the starlight falling in from the open doors. Sam has his back to Dean, can feel the reverberation in the air as both their guns fire and knows that they have seconds to live. Suddenly there’s a pull on his attention, a shift in something within him, like someone has tugged gently on an ephemeral part of his being, and he recognises the feeling of power draining from him. Knowing all at once what it must be, he lets it happen.

The drain is subtle, barely there, more a sensing of someone else’s actions than a need to give, and his ears pick up the rushing of the wind, no - the flicker and whisper of angel’s wings. They circle the house once, faster than his thoughts can follow, then suddenly there’s a snap and light blooms. The candles they’d been using before the generator was hooked up roar to life as one, their flames reaching a foot into the air and then dying back, filling the room with a warm, golden light that makes Sam squint and flinch away. He and Dean brace themselves as the Leviathans draw up short, blinking in surprise.

“What the hell?” one of them says. “Who the fuck are you?”

Lucifer is standing just inside the open front door, hand still raised, fingers now relaxed where he’s snapped the flames into life. Although enormously glad in this one instance to see him, Sam still has the presence of mind to note with exasperation the love of theatrics apparently so common to archangels.

Lucifer gives the room a slow, predatory smirk and tilts his head. At the movement the front and back doors slam closed with such violent force Sam feels the reverberation of it through the floorboards. He counts six Leviathans in the house, all of them now turned to face the new threat, pinned by the sudden ambient potential in the air that makes skin creep and hair stand on end, and which indicates in no uncertain terms the presence of a serious power. _Archangel mojo_ , Sam thinks, and for some reason he finds himself smiling. Lucifer meets his gaze and blinks smug amusement back at him.

“You know, guys. I’m a little hurt you don’t remember me,” Lucifer says. “No matter.”

And then he’s moving. If Leviathans are fast, an archangel is so much faster. Lucifer hits the second Leviathan before the first has even had time to register that it’s already dead. His blade is a flash of quicksilver and diamond glint in the candlelight, piercing the chests of each with all the unstoppable force of his nature. He hits like a tidal wave, smashing aside all resistance, relentless and inescapable. 

Pressed together in the centre of the room, the hunters can do little but watch. In truth, there’s no time for them to do anything else. The remaining four Leviathans, in desperation or overconfidence or stupidity, hurl themselves at Lucifer, and he meets them with blade and fist, punching one so hard he snaps its neck in an instant. With brutal efficiency he strikes each monster down, backhanding one that comes too close and stamping it to the floor while he deals with the rest. The room fills with the bright blaze of holy fire and the drifting of ash as the Leviathans burn away to dust. The humans, left to their own devices, can only watch.

In the silence that falls after the last monster settles into dust, Lucifer stands amidst the hazy evidence of carnage and rolls his shoulders. It’s just a little over fifteen seconds since he first drew his blade.

“Jesus Christ, dude,” Dean whispers in unconcealed awe.

Lucifer turns to give him a considering glance. “No, definitely not,” he murmurs.

Then he turns to Sam, and Sam, who had been looking in amazement at the dusted remains of what would have been their certain deaths, looks up to meet his eyes as though shocked with a live wire. 

“We should leave now.”

In the candlelight the Devil’s face is shadowed and severe, and Sam catches the glint of his eyes, a silver blue reflection in the dark. He thinks of the strength behind the archangel’s blows, and the way he hadn’t hesitated for even a second when he’d stamped down hard enough to snap bone and crack floorboards beneath his foot. Sam is accustomed to the righteous ferocity of angels, but he’s only mortal and sometimes he forgets. 

“We’ll pack,” he nods, mouth dry.

In the flickering of the candlelight Lucifer looks entirely like the Devil he really is.

  
  


*

  
  


They spend the next few days on the road, taking the back routes and keeping to themselves. In rare combination Bobby rides with Dean in the Impala, and Sam takes the pickup, the archangel lounging against the window across from him. Any other combination simply would not have worked, Dean too jumpy to let the archangel sit in with him, and of course the idea of Lucifer riding alone with Bobby is never even raised. 

Bobby’s truck is laden with the kit they’d taken out with them - generator, supplies and tools - all hidden securely beneath a dusty old tarp to keep it from prying eyes. This pleases Lucifer since it means due to lack of space Sam lets him in the cabin with him, though Sam would have allowed it anyway. Everyone is still a little taken aback by the sharp reminder of Lucifer’s true capacity for violence, and even Sam, intimately familiar with it, still sits musing in silence on the awesome physical strength of the creature sitting next to him. 

Packing had been a controlled scramble for everything they’d brought with them, punctuated by snatches of taut conversation regarding the Leviathans. Dean had thought he’d recognised a few of them, but it was Bobby who placed them as men he’d seen lounging with their trucks in the parking lot of one of the diners. Lucifer had shrugged and called the town infested beyond their capability to contain, which Dean, the memory of the archangel’s mercury blade still firmly in mind, had immediately challenged. 

“You knew they were there, and yet you still let us wander through the middle of them?”

“I _suspected,”_ the archangel had corrected him. “Just as you did. It would have been unwise to poke the hornet’s nest too much in case I turned out to be right.”

“You bastard, you could have gotten us all killed!” Dean had gotten right up in the archangel’s face then, anger making him reckless enough to forget for a moment the archangel’s recent display of ferocity. 

“What would you have had me do, Dean? Burn the whole town to the ground?”

Sam had ended that discussion with a sharp reminder that the rules of the summoning state the archangel is not permitted to harm humans, and they’d gone on their way in a silence tense enough it stretched between both vehicles.

They’ve been on the road two days when they finally stop running long enough to find a motel and pause to breathe. They pick one on the edge of town with a parking lot screened from the road where they can keep the vehicles out of sight, and the brothers head inside to hire rooms. When the receptionist asks how many they realise that two is the answer, but not in the usual way, not with Lucifer in tow. It’s a strange feeling to consider not sharing with his brother, and there’s a moment’s hesitation as Dean looks to Sam, then sideways at the archangel loitering out in the parking lot. He only carries on when Sam nods once, firmly. 

By the time they’ve grabbed food from down the street and eaten it over an open Google Maps tab, discussing directions and potential stopover points, Sam is ready to hit the sack. He leaves Dean and Bobby to it, the old hunter already back on his phone calling up contacts and sounding out possibilities. They’re not going back to Rufus’ cabin, not yet anyway. Instead they’re going to meander their way through the National Forests, skimming the edge of Yellowstone and sweeping back up towards Bozeman. It’s a move they hope will keep them out of sight and throw off any potential tails, but Lucifer’s already told them there’s nothing in pursuit - information bought at only a ‘minor expenditure of power’ according to the archangel. Even so, each one of them is looking over his shoulder every other minute.

Sam throws the keys down on the bedside table and stretches the kinks out of his muscles. Two days straight driving through tiny, forgotten roads, then spending the night between in the truck has done him no favours. That and having caught around a total of five hours sleep in all. He rocks his head from side to side to ease the tension in his neck, and as he does so he catches sight of Lucifer. The archangel is prowling the edge of the room, absorbing every detail of the dated décor as though it’s the most fascinating hall of antiquities. He stops abruptly when he feels Sam’s eyes on him, and turns with a questioning look.

He’ll be alone in here with him while he sleeps, Sam thinks, and then realises suddenly that it doesn’t bother him. Not in the way it once would have done and abruptly it occurs to him that he cannot understand why. Perhaps it’s Stockholm Syndrome, or the inevitability of it all, or simply that he’s completely out of energy to feel horror any more, but the idea of being alone and arguably helpless with Lucifer in a room doesn’t spike panic in his chest or make his breathing come sharp and fast. It makes him feel...nothing. Casting a glance at the second bed which he knows the archangel won’t even use, Sam snatches up the cheap motel room towel from the chair in the corner. 

“I’m going to get a shower and call it a night. You ah, just stay in here, all right? Don’t go wandering around, I don’t want the staff freaking out.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow at that and gives Sam the smallest of smiles, just touched with mischief, to which Sam frowns. “Seriously, dude. I do not need the hassle from Dean or anyone else.”

The archangel laughs softly and by the time Sam returns from the en suite he’s sat in the corner watching the TV with the sound off and a look on his face somewhere between morbid fascination and horror. Sam leaves him to it and goes directly to bed where he lies, staring up at the ceiling and trying to pretend that he’s not acutely aware of Lucifer sitting at the far end of the room, staring at the flickering images of modern humanity in all its ignominy. This is nothing more than they’ve done together for the past six months, he thinks, and knows immediately how wrong that is. The Lucifer of his memories would be making him watch along with him, or at least throwing nasty, coarse comments in his direction every time he stumbled across another way to twist at Sam’s insecurities. 

_That wasn’t me, Sam._

The ceiling has a mottled brown patch on it where something in the room above has leaked badly enough to seep all the way through to the plaster below and Sam stares at it fixedly. Lucifer had made that claim with such sincerity, such openness in his voice. It hadn’t been the only thing he’d said that had struck Sam at a strange angle either. There’s been other comments, other pauses. Other occasions where the archangel has looked at him and something in Sam’s mind has shifted awkwardly, thrown off kilter like a slipping gear, or a missing step in the staircase.

_Sam, if you are under any influence...any type of coercion at all._

The low burn of anger in the angel’s voice that first day had been real enough that Sam had heard it even through his own outrage. He measures it against the look he’d seen in Lucifer’s eyes at the diner, when he’d accused him of- what? Such is his disgust that Sam hasn’t even been able to find the words to tell the angel what it is that he sees, cannot bring himself to speak the horrors that haunt his memories. Lucifer claims not to know, holding up his long held promise that he will never harm him, that Sam has nothing to fear from him. But Lucifer has always said that, and Sam can still remember the sound of those hellhounds running through the streets of Carthage in pursuit of them. He closes his eyes against the memory of that day, of the baying of the pack and the sound of an explosion so near and loud it had almost deafened him.

He opens them five hours later and looks around, surprised that even in the darkness he can see the curve of the tunnel walls. There’s a slow trickle of glistening blood on every surface, and the claustrophobic feel of thousands of tonnes of rock pressing in on him from above and below makes him gasp spasmodically. Sam shifts and all at once finds himself trapped, the tunnel around him suddenly tight on his body, pressing his knees up into his chest and his arms into his sides. He moans in startled horror, struggling instinctively, the walls slick and hot against his skin. Disgusted and beginning to panic he tries fiercely to squirm free. 

On either side the tunnel stretches off into the distance, one way to a light that turns his stomach with its sinister familiarity, and the other to a darkness that makes him shudder at its blank depth. Trapped by weight and pressure he fights with all his strength, but his agitated convulsions succeed only in wedging him further into position. Groaning, he turns his face away from the sickly light before the malignant touch of it can play across his skin, turning instead to the darkness, confused by how he can shift in place but still remain gripped by the damp, pulsing stone.

He feels what's coming, rippling across the surface of reality before it even happens, and his heart pounds with panic and horror. The bell that speaks in answer to his dread, tolling sonorously in the darkness, reverberates with a wrongness that Sam feels in the very depths of his soul. He pushes towards the shadows, thinking to escape or to hide, and as he reaches for them, a great eye opens before him, milky and white and filled with a putrescent light than glows from within. It shifts, gelid surface contracting as it focuses in on him. Sam screams beneath the awful weight of that regard-

-and comes awake retching, choking for breath and gripped by horror. There’s a weight on his shoulder holding him down with inexorable strength and he finds himself face to face with Lucifer. The archangel has one hand keeping him firmly in place on the mattress, the other held to his forehead. Sam can feel the coolness of his fingers pressing against his flushed skin and without thinking he reaches for the archangel, grabbing hard for his arm and gripping tightly as though he risks falling back into nothing if he lets go. In the dim light of the bedside lamp the angel’s cool blue eyes are steady and calm, and as Sam shudders, gasping for air beneath his hands, he leans in close.

“Hush, Sam,” Lucifer says, voice low. “Let me listen.”

The archangel’s hand slips from his forehead around to the back of Sam’s neck, pulling him up into a sitting position. Even had he wanted to Sam could not have resisted that strength, so he goes where the archangel moves him until Lucifer cups both hands around his cheeks and leans in to catch Sam’s gaze. His palms are cool and he’s so close Sam can feel the indescribable hum of him on the air, something potent and particular to the strangeness of angels. Beneath his grip the archangel’s muscles are hard, filled with the unnatural resilience of his kind. Right now Sam finds that rock-solid immovability to be everything he needs. 

“It’s back,” Sam gasps, swallowing hard. “Lucifer, it’s back.”

There’s something probing and intent in Lucifer’s gaze, but it’s a steady, calm interest that soothes the trembling in Sam’s body and slows his breathing back to natural. 

“Yes,” the archangel says softly, finally letting his hands drop from Sam’s face. “I think you’re right.”

  
  


*

  
  


It’s seven in the morning and Sam is already on his third coffee. He’s skimming over news reports as he drinks, fingertips scrolling down local news sites and hunter forums, looking for signs. There’s a caffeine shake in his limbs that’s hard to hide, and he knows that Dean has already spotted it. Both Dean and Bobby are on the phone to different contacts, each of them leaning over the map and marking it with little red tags. Lucifer is out in the parking lot where he’s been for the past four hours doing whatever the hell it is that archangels do when they ask to be let outside for alone time in the dark. He’d made the request not long after Sam had been able to prove that he could lift a hand without his whole arm shaking with remembered adrenaline, then while Sam had gone to rouse the others, he’d just vanished into thin air.

Sam’s not concerned, he knows the archangel is still within reasonable distance, but there’s a part of him that wishes he was still standing right next to him with that weird, calming aura of his. Disgusted with himself, Sam tuts and scrolls more fiercely down a page.

“Is he back yet?” Dean asks, setting his phone back down on the tabletop.

“What?” says Sam blankly, once he realises he’s being spoken to.

“Come on, Sam, snap out of it. Lucifer. Where the hell is he?”

Sam shakes his head at Dean’s irritated look and tries to gather his thoughts. “He’s uh, out in the parking lot I think.”

Dean puts his head on one side and gives Sam such a look of disbelieving exasperation that Sam sets his coffee down and gets up to peer out the window in search of the archangel.

“And how does being in the parking lot help him track this thing down?”

“I don’t know, Dean. I guess he’s tuning in or something.” 

In his haste to wake the others last night, Sam had almost told his brother the truth. But when Dean had answered the door, gun in one hand, eyes narrowed with tension, he’d realised that he didn’t know what to say. _Hi, Dean. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier but every time that monster wakes up I’ve been having nightmares. You know, like the ones where Lucifer tortures me but with extra cosmic horror? And guess what? It’s back and I'm tuned directly into it!_ No. Because it’s bad enough his brother already walks a fine line between trusting him and thinking he’s crazy. To add this new, twisted low to the mix is something Sam just can’t bring himself to do. 

“Tell me again why he thinks it’s back?”

Sam can’t see the archangel in the parking lot, just the watery light of a new day struggling to make something of itself, and he sighs in frustration. 

“I told you, he sensed something and woke me up.”

It’s not exactly a lie, is it? Just a version of the truth. _Goddamnit,_ Sam thinks, and closes his eyes briefly.

“He’s not wrong.” Bobby sets his phone down on the table and pulls the map towards him. Both brothers turn as he picks up a handful of tags and starts affixing them to the paper, one by one. “Lights in the sky, field of sick cattle, more lights, white 'rainbow' in the middle of the night, broken windows in every house in town, another lightshow. The lights and the windows all happened around 3 am last night, the rest of it, well. Reckon if we call round we’ll pick up even more.”

Sam crosses hurriedly to the map and looks at the pattern Bobby’s pins have made. “Oregon,” he says. 

“All over the damned state,” Dean mutters.

“But still, that’s better clustering than we’ve seen yet.”

“So far,” Dean says grimly. “All right, both of you. Get back on the phones, let’s see if this is a pattern or just the first people to check in. And Sammy, get that damned archangel back in here.”

The day outside is threatening rain when Sam pokes his head out into the parking lot. The rooms they’ve hired are on one long row and open directly onto the outside world. He glances left and right, seeing no-one, and quietly closes the door behind him. Lucifer is nowhere in sight. He’d told him not to go far, and there’s a part of him that believes the archangel is close even if he can’t immediately see him. Some sense of him he can’t quite articulate that makes him frown but doesn’t particularly make him worry. 

How does one summon an archangel? There’s spells of course, plenty of them, none of which he has the requirements for just lying around. And the idea of drawing up a circle in the middle of the motel parking lot is vaguely ridiculous. He could shout for him, or, he could do the obvious thing and pray. That is, after all, the traditional method of calling down angels. 

Sam sighs, long and slow, and decides that he hates what his life has become. 

_Lucifer,_ he thinks, sending the thought out as clearly as he knows how. _Get back here._

There’s a whisper of wings and the sibilant hiss of something that sounds like a thousand soft voices, and then the archangel is standing next to him.

“Sam?”

“Where the hell were you?” Sam asks, eyeing him curiously.

Lucifer shrugs, and with a nod of his chin indicates the general vicinity of everywhere. “Around,” he replies cryptically.

Sam suspects that if he pressed for an answer what he’d get is a whole spiel of metaphysics and inadvertent condescension that although truthful would hardly help answer the question. He closes his eyes briefly and shakes his head. “Come back inside, we think we’ve spotted a pattern.”

“Yes, good,” the archangel says, and there’s a satisfied note to his voice that makes Sam look at him quizzically. Lucifer simply smiles, gesturing for Sam to lead on, and that makes Sam’s eyes narrow even more. By the time they return indoors Bobby has added another three pins to the map, and Dean is leaning on his knuckles, scowling down at the table. He looks up as they enter, then nods at the map.

“It’s definitely Oregon,” he says. “All over the damned state but only Oregon. Which is just great because that narrows it down to only, what, a hundred square miles? Tell me you’ve finally got something useful for us, douchebag, or start explaining why we shouldn’t just express mail you back where you came from.”

Lucifer slips past Sam and crosses to the table, looking down at the scattering of pins. Sam follows him curiously. He can feel a tension in the archangel, or a smugness perhaps - something in the way he holds himself so very casually.

Lucifer’s mouth twists into a slow, self-satisfied smirk that he directs at Dean, the one that Sam knows will boil his brother’s blood. “Thank you for your extraordinary patience, Dean,” he drawls. “But no need to get your panties in a bunch.”

Dean’s face hardens at the archangel’s mockery, and Sam is drawing breath to cut them both off when Lucifer turns to him.

“But I do, Sam. I’ve found it, and I can lead you to it.”

There’s a strange, triumphant gleam in the archangel’s eyes, something of satisfaction and an anticipation that makes the pulse in Sam’s veins leap. He swallows, breathes out a shocked huff of breath, and smiles, more in surprise than happiness. But Lucifer sees it, and his answering smile is wide and full of a dark, proud triumph that makes Sam’s heart skip a beat.

“Right now?” Sam asks, almost breathless.

Lucifer nods. “Whenever you’re ready, Sam.”

He nods, catches his brother’s startled look over the archangel’s shoulder, and seeing it nods again.

“Then..." Sam says, shrugging even though his pulse is hammering and he can feel the shake that's crept back into his limbs. "...let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that brings us to the end of Part 2. See you Sunday for further shenanigans. :]


	15. Part 3 - The Binding Ch.15 - The Ghost Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lair of the beast; a change in plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, the first of two weekend chapters.

**Part 3 - The Binding**

The ghost town sits at the top of a slow rise of scrubby hills, dotted with tough-looking trees that cling steadfastly to the parched land. A rough gravel road winds its way through the terrain, threading between huge mounds of earth, now long overgrown and gone wild. There’s a starved, malnourished feel to the land around here, as though something has long since rendered the place lifeless. Everywhere is still and silent save for the soft whisper of the wind through the stunted trees.

They’ve left Bobby and his truck two miles back down the gravel track and hiked the rest of the way on foot. Sam had expected Lucifer to complain, but the archangel has been strangely quiet since the morning, the self-satisfied enthusiasm of yesterday faded now into something cold and intense. Sam knows that he’s just concentrating, leading them on by whatever celestial sense is letting him track this monster, but still he and Dean share tense looks behind the archangel’s back.

The place is marked down on the maps as nameless private property, and a Google search has turned up nothing of interest. A tortuous mess of half-defunct links seem to suggest that the place was once a mine, but the aerial view does little to confirm or deny the fact. It seems to rely on its remote location and lack of decent road infrastructure to keep itself hidden.

By the time the first dilapidated buildings come into view both brothers are itching to pull their firearms out. The whole place hums with something that pricks the skin between the shoulder blades, as though the very trees themselves are watching them trek in. 

“Looks burnt out,” Dean mutters, and Sam nods. 

They make their way up past what must have once been a street of businesses and homes, but which now is nothing more than fire-gutted frames, and in places little more than collections of blackened planks. There are small hints of plant-life growing amongst the destruction, and the soil has the look of weathering that suggests none of this is recent. Sam peers inside the empty buildings, looking carefully through at soot-ruined walls and the skeletal remnants of what once would have been furniture. His pulse is leaping, far more than the simple hike up here should merit, and there’s an itching in his teeth that makes him think of the auras the Horsemen had carried with them - strange and otherworldly and half a degree off from anything right. He knows it’s threading tension through his every move, and he can feel Lucifer watching him almost as strongly as he can feel the gaze of the dead-eyed windows of the buildings they pass.

“What the hell happened here?” Dean asks, pausing to look around.

It’s Lucifer who answers, surprising them both. The archangel casts his gaze across the town, and from the focus of his eyes it’s clear he’s seeing more than just the blackened buildings and overgrown street. 

“A fire gone out of control, forty years ago. This place had been abandoned long before that point though.” 

He puts a palm flat to the timbers of one wall but when he lifts it away his skin is clean. 

“How do you know that?” Dean asks, and Lucifer tilts his head at him.

“Angel magic, Dean,” he says softly.

“Come on,” Sam snaps, suddenly irritated, and without waiting for either of them heads on up the street. 

When he finds the church, Sam stops dead. Set a little apart from the rest of the buildings, it’s the one structure that looks completely untouched by the fires of yesteryear. Even so its wood panelling is faded and peeled, its windows broken, and front doors nailed closed. But it’s not the sight of the decrepitude that holds him in place, it’s the bell that sits in the tall tower, dull and lifeless now and barely protected by the little peaked cupola beneath which it shelters. Something about it stops the breath in Sam’s chest and fills his stomach with the cold clutch of dread. 

“Sam.”

He jumps, and knows by the look in Lucifer’s eyes that he’s given away his fear with the abruptness of his reaction. 

“I’m fine,” he says reflexively, and although the archangel doesn’t push, his eyes do not leave Sam’s face. For a second, he thinks that Lucifer will reach out and touch him, in reassurance perhaps, or encouragement, and suddenly wanting neither Sam steps past him and heads further up the winding street. 

The road is mostly dust and potholes beneath his feet, long since abandoned to the ravages of time, and in the eerie silence the crunch of his footsteps are louder than anything else. Incongruous in the otherwise empty surroundings, Sam can feel a weight on the air, like a strange pull of gravity, or of dread, that leads him onwards and upwards into the late afternoon sun. He follows the draw of it, taking the lead now, his brother and Lucifer trailing along behind. 

When he comes upon the entrance to the tunnel bored into the side of the hill he stops short and stares. A stark feeling of recognition, of knowing where that entrance leads, is ringing inside him, clenching his muscles and making his pulse pound. All at one another detail slots into place, awkward fragments coming together into one sudden insight.

“It’s a mineshaft,” he says breathlessly. “Of course it is.”

A pair of heavy iron gates stand open, a padlock and chain left coiled on the ground, glinting in the sunlight, and above the entrance a faded old board declares this to be Shaft 0. Emblazoned across the top of the sign in peeling letters are the words _“The Old Oregon Mercury Co.”_

“Sam?” Dean’s voice is wary, and touched with confusion.

Sam stiffens, realising that he’d almost said too much. Dean doesn’t know about the tunnel that appears in his dreams, so there’s no reason for the dark and the mineshaft and the great tolling bell to suddenly start making sense. It’s Lucifer that saves him. 

“And so it matches what I saw,” the archangel says smoothly, coming up on his right. 

Sam glances at him, relieved despite the deception, then nods. He can feel Dean looking between the pair of them, naturally suspicious of anything that comes out of Lucifer’s mouth. But it’s too late for the truth now, and it’s irrelevant anyway. They’ve found the beast’s lair without him needing the details of how. Besides, there’s no harm in his brother not knowing the extent of Sam’s, what was it Lucifer had called it? Claircognizance? Not yet anyway, not until Sam’s sure of it himself. Therefore, he thinks, no harm in accepting the save the archangel is handing to him.

Gathering himself Sam steps towards the entrance to the shaft, gun in hand, and peers into the darkness. Even from three paces away he can feel the chill of underground emanating from within. Beyond, the tunnel slopes steeply down into blackness, a set of rusted iron tracks that once would have supported carts stretching away into nothing. Sam feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and has to swallow hard against the desire to step back.

“Are we going down there?”

Dean’s voice is grim, albeit underpinned by a world-weary determination. It’s the tone that says they’ve been here before, standing in the mouth of some monster’s lair, be it a stinking pit of bones or a beautifully decorated room where angels go to lounge. 

“I don’t think that would be wise, not yet,” Lucifer replies slowly, and Sam is glad because suddenly he’s not so sure that he could. There’s something in his limbs that’s holding them stiff and still, keeping him rooted in place like God Himself has commanded it. The darkness down there seems absolute in a way that’s different to anything he’s felt before.

“Let’s look around up here first,” he manages. 

Lucifer is already scanning the hillside with a considering gaze, eyes narrowed in thought. Face set and grim, Dean heads further uphill to look at the abandoned machinery that lies scattered across the slope, all of it rusted and scavenged beyond use or recognisability. Sam leans in closer to the archangel. He’s thinking of the blood that had slicked the surface of the tunnel in his dreams, the swell of it beneath his fingers as he’d clawed his way towards freedom.

“So... cinnabar’s mercury ore, right? I’m kinda hazy on this, but, isn’t it red? Like, blood red?”

Lucifer hums confirmation, but doesn’t look round. Instead he sets off downhill again, back towards the burnt-out buildings. With a start Sam realises that from this angle a far more modern cabin is visible, its windows dark but its door open. 

“Dean,” he calls. His brother looks down from atop something that must once have been an industrial-size winching machine, and at Sam’s irritated glare comes down to join him. Together they follow the archangel back down the hill.

Lucifer walks with his eyes fixed on the cabin, and the two brothers hurry to catch up. Dean puts a hand to Sam’s shoulder and draws him back, keeping him safely behind the archangel with a meaningful look. After a second’s thought Sam gives in and matches his pace. This is why they summoned Lucifer after all, he thinks. The archangel is here to protect them, not the other way round.

The cabin is one of those basic building site ones, temporary until they become permanent, and there are clear signs of recent life. A truck sits tucked away around the back, and there’s a woodpile at the side, evidence of some kind of burner within where the pipe of a chimney pokes from one corner of the flat roof. A plaque to the side of the door indicates that this is site security, and while the brothers exchange glances, Lucifer steps silently up the three metal steps that lead to the door and looks inside. After a second he pads forward into the gloom, and, guns raised, the brothers follow.

The inside of the cabin is sparse but reasonably sized. A portable TV sits on a book-piled desk, a local area map pinned above it. There’s a bed against one wall, and the other is taken up with a rudimentary kitchen - gas stove, sink and crockery hanging to dry. A tiny table and two chairs eat up the bulk of the space in the middle of the room, but it’s the familiar chalk remains that draw everyone’s eye. 

“Did it eat a dog?” 

Dean sounds aghast, and Sam wrinkles his nose in disgust. Curled up in front of a dusty, floor-length old mirror are the perfectly preserved chalked remains of what must have once been a German Shepherd dog. 

Lucifer pads across the cabin and goes down on one knee, careful not to disturb what’s left of the animal. He looks from the alabaster white of its remains up at the cracked mirror nailed to the wall. Gently, he reaches out and presses his fingertips to the mirror’s surface. 

“No,” he replies softly. “It rode it up here.” 

“Great,” Dean mutters. “So where’s the owner?”

“Down in the darkness, I would imagine,” Lucifer says. “Long dead if it had to resort to using this as a vessel.”

Sam had been circling carefully round the edge of the room to peer out of the curtained window. He draws back at the answer, frowning at the thrill of horror the archangel’s words spark in him. He’s dreamed that darkness, been there in the deep with the thing, and he cannot imagine the horror of dying down there alone with it. “Like an angel’s vessel?” he manages.

“Not really.” 

Lucifer pushes himself to his feet, and where his movements were slow and considered before, now there’s a tension to him, an alertness that makes the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck rise. He can see Dean reacting in the same way behind the archangel, and from the expression on his brother’s face he doesn’t know exactly what it is they’re reacting to either.

“Lucifer?” 

Sam takes a tentative step towards the archangel, and without looking Lucifer holds out a hand to him.

“Come here, both of you.”

Although he says the words calmly, there’s something to the angel’s tone that makes Sam swallow. He can see Dean frown and pause at the order, but Sam steps closer immediately, shaking his head sharply at his brother. Dean gives him a querying look, but then suddenly there’s something else on the air that’s nothing to do with the soft background thrum of insects or the hiss of the breeze through the scrubby trees. 

“Can you smell that?” Dean asks, face screwing up in confusion. “Smells like old lady bedroom.”

“ _Dean,_ ” Sam snaps. He can smell it too now, the sickly sweet scent of flowers and rot. He knows that scent from dreams and half-remembered visions, and he knows too what it heralds. “Lucifer,” he says again. All around them there’s a rising whine on the air, like the high-pitched resonance of a struck glass. Come out of nowhere it scratches at the nerves and makes the inside of Sam’s head ring with disorientation.

“Come here now, Dean, if you want to live,” Lucifer says, and this time, when the archangel reaches out a hand to him, Dean steps in closer.

“Are we fighting?” Dean asks, for the first time in his life turning round to put his back to the Devil.

Lucifer doesn’t reply. The windowpanes have begun to rattle in their frames, so fast the sound of it is an eerie hum on the air, and beneath their feet the cabin’s floor feels suddenly uncertain. Sam sets his stance wide and tries to keep his balance against a floor gone abruptly treacherous. He feels Lucifer grip him by the shoulder and leans into the touch, using the archangel’s uncompromising solidity to brace against. 

“Is it coming?” he asks, voice breathless.

The archangel’s grip on his shoulder tightens and the whine in the air becomes an unbearable ringing that makes his teeth ache and his eyes hurt. He hears his brother shout in pain as reality swims around him, bending in the strangest of ways. Lucifer’s fingers dig into his flesh, hard enough to bruise, and then the world is filled with the thousand-whisper susurration of angel wings and the stretched displacement of celestial flight.

  
  


*

  
  


Dean staggers and goes down hard on his knees in the gravel, and Sam sways, held upright only by the grip the archangel has on his shoulder. Both brothers jump as behind them something hits the ground with a rolling clatter, until Lucifer puts his foot down firmly, pinning it in place. Sam looks blearily down at the flat length of wood and frowns, trying to get a grip on the situation.

“Did you bring the mirror?” he asks blankly, head still ringing.

“Hush,” Lucifer says and tilts his head as though listening. 

Around them the land falls away in a gentle slope, the scrubby trees standing low and sparse. Sam recognises the place they left the truck at about the same time he realises he’s staring down the distant barrel of Bobby’s rifle. He startles back hard enough that Lucifer tightens his grip on his shoulder to keep him in place, and a hundred yards away Bobby lowers his gun and glares. Pushing himself up next to them, Dean dusts off his jeans and gives Lucifer a dirty look.

“The fu-” he starts.

“ _Silence!”_ Lucifer snaps, and the note of archangelic command in his tone fastens Dean’s mouth closed and brings Sam’s head round sharply to stare in surprise. The brothers meet one another’s eyes and Sam raises a hand to quell Dean’s reaction, but there’s something to the tension in the archangel’s body that tells them both that this time the arrogance isn’t personal. 

For a long minute the three of them simply stand and listen. That unbearable ringing is gone, the overwhelming feeling of something looming over them dissolved away like so much smoke. It’s two miles back to the ghost town that they’ve left behind, a split-second beat of powerful celestial wings that’s carried them far from the beast’s lair in the time it took to blink. 

Finally, Lucifer relaxes. Letting his hand fall from Sam’s shoulder he lifts his foot from the mirror he’s pressed down into the dirt and then, with a lazy snap of his fingers, vanishes it.

Sam raises his eyebrows. “You, uh, you wanna tell us what’s going on?”

The archangel doesn’t look at either of them, simply nods his chin towards where Bobby is still standing warily by the truck. 

“Let’s leave, and I’ll explain on the way.”

It takes until they’re back on the road across the desert before Lucifer loses the last of his watchful tension. He raps his knuckles on the rear window of the truck cabin until Bobby pulls over in the dust at the side of the road, and with uneasy glances at each other, the three hunters get out.

“This would be a lot easier if you let me ride in the cabin,” the archangel remarks, turning to lean his forearm on the side of the flatbed and look down at them. He’s squeezed in just behind the cabin of the truck, a selection of their kit left back in the motel room to leave just enough room for a man his size to fit.

“No,” Dean says flatly. “Now what the hell is going on?”

Lucifer meets Sam’s apprehensive gaze, then draws in a breath at what he sees there. “Hm,” is all he says.

“Lucifer,” Sam snaps irritably, tension finally getting the better of him. “Is the damned thing coming after us or not?”

The archangel opens his mouth as though to speak, then closes it and sighs. “Not. Let’s get back to base, boys.”

Before any of them can react Lucifer has clicked his fingers and the world once more shifts around them. They reappear in the dusty parking lot of their current motel amidst the sudden scents of sun-warmed asphalt and the greasy slick of a nearby burger bar on the air.

“Christ, did you learn that off Gabriel or something?” Dean gasps, staggering as he makes a grab for Sam’s arm to steady himself.

The archangel vaults lithely over the side of the truck, landing gracefully at Sam’s side. His features are drawn into a perplexed frown as he tilts his head. “...learn what, Dean?”

“The goddamned clicking!”

Sam reaches for his brother even as he looks hastily around to check they haven’t been spotted. The truck is still squeaking as it rocks slightly on its suspension, returned once more to the parking lot round the back of their current motel. Bobby is turning in a half-circle on the other side of the vehicle, grimacing away the after-effects of angelic flight. 

“I think you’ll find that everything Gabriel knew, I taught him,” Lucifer says darkly.

“Yeah, right. Enough.” Pulling Dean upright, Sam turns the full force of his furious glare on the archangel. The sudden display of angelic power has unnerved him, not only because it doesn’t make sense but because it seems so completely unnecessary. “Get inside, _now,”_ he snarls at Lucifer. Beside him, Dean shrugs his jacket back into place on his shoulders and joins his glare to Sam’s. He barely has time to narrow his eyes before the archangel has already vanished.

By the time the three of them are safely back inside the motel, Sam has worked himself up into a truly righteous fury. The memory of the creature and the weakness of the abject horror it had provoked in him make him at once both ashamed and deeply, incandescently furious. Compelled by the chains of his binding, Lucifer has already vanished on ahead into the room they’ve been using as their base, and when Sam bursts through the door, Bobby and Dean trailing behind him, the angel actually holds up his hands in a placatory gesture.

“Sam-”

“No! Why didn’t you kill it? Why are we back here? What the fuck just happened, Lucifer?”

He can feel Dean settling in at his side, even catches the concern in his brother’s glance before he masks it and turns his gaze on the archangel. A united front is good, it’s exactly what Sam needs right now.

Lucifer lowers his hands and sighs. He looks, all of a sudden, tired with the weight of all his many long millennia of existence, and if Sam wasn’t so blindingly angry about everything right now he might stop to consider why. Dean sees it though, and his eyes narrow uneasily.

“Firstly, I needed more time. If I’d faced it down right then I couldn’t have protected the two of you, it would have burned you up to ash. I did warn you of that before you both insisted on going out there with me.”

The truth of Lucifer's words is inescapable. He’d wanted to go out to the beast’s lair alone, but neither of the brothers had countenanced the idea. Although the archangel's tone is pitched to soothe, Sam is still breathing hard with anger, his eyes flinty and cold. Dean for once is silent and watchful, an unexpectedly cooler presence at his brother’s side. 

“Secondly, I wanted to be sure it was exactly what I thought it was,” Lucifer continues slowly. “These creatures can be tricky. They don’t follow the rules like your run of the mill monster of the week does. They exist by an entirely different code of conduct, and come from a world you boys couldn’t even look at without losing your minds.”

“Okay, and?” Sam snaps. “What the hell was that thing with the truck? If you could do that why didn’t you just snap us out there in the first place? Why make us drive all that way if you were just going to fly us back the second you got bored?”

“Because I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t feel me arrive if I flew us in, and if it did how fast it would react. Creatures like myself and that beast have a different set of senses to humans, you know that, Sam. It could have sensed the disturbance in the local reality and acted accordingly. It _is_ a predator. Once I was sure of its... _lack of nuance..._ I took the convenient route back. That’s all, Sam.”

Lucifer regards him carefully, looking from Sam’s face to Dean’s and then back again, as though seeking some kind of understanding that neither seem willing to give. Sam can feel his lips twitch unhappily as he considers the angel’s answer. In truth he doesn’t think the archangel is lying to them, but his casual display of unasked-for power has set Sam’s nerves to jangling in a way for which he hadn’t been prepared. It’s only now, standing in the middle of their motel room, that he can feel the rush of adrenaline starting to fade.

Dean glances sideways at his brother, and receiving no reaction instead nods his chin at the archangel. "So what is it, what did we learn out there?" 

There's a long pause as Lucifer looks to Sam, trying to catch and hold his gaze, clearly made wary by the aura of agitation emanating from him.

“Think of it as... a type of light elemental,” the archangel says finally. When the brothers stare at him in flat incomprehension he shakes his head, searching for the words to describe the beast. “That’s one of its defining characteristics, its governing traits. Part of how it manifests here.”

“So why’s it underground?” Dean asks.

Lucifer winces. “It’s not an exact analogy.”

“I don’t care,” Sam breaks in, suddenly tired of the details. “Can you kill it?”

The silence stretches long enough that Dean closes his eyes and Sam begins to shake his head in dismay. “Lucifer…”

“It’s going to be a little more tricky than I thought,” the archangel admits finally.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Dean begins to turn away, then wheels back round sharply to fix Lucifer with a glare. “Define ‘tricky.’”

Lucifer’s eyes don’t leave Sam’s face, seemingly drawn there by the sudden paleness of the younger Winchester’s skin. “In my current state, at my current power, I cannot kill it.”

There is a very long stretch of dismayed silence. It’s broken not by Dean, but by Sam. 

_“What?”_ he whispers.

Lucifer takes a step towards him, one hand raised as though seeking to reassure. “It’s not the end of it,” the archangel says. “I believe I can trap it. It won’t be dead, but it will be subdued, neutralised. Unable to harm anyone.”

“I don’t want it neutralised,” Sam snaps. “I want it dead!”

“Sam,” Dean says, shaking his head. 

Sam turns to him, eyes widening in disbelief. “Dean, really? This is why we brought him here, to kill this thing. And suddenly you’re okay with it not happening?”

Dean throws him an irritated sideways glare, then takes a slow step towards Lucifer. The archangel turns slightly to meet him, not quite squaring off against him, but something close. There’s a resigned tension to the set of Dean’s shoulders, like somehow this new development doesn’t surprise him in the least. Just another unfortunate twist in a long line of similar such Winchester bad luck.

“If you can’t kill it then how do you intend to trap it?”

With a quick glance from Sam to Dean, Lucifer gives the tiniest shrug of his shoulder. “We’ll trap it in a mirror cage.”

“Come again?” Dean frowns.

Lucifer takes a breath as he considers his answer, half his attention still on Sam’s glowering, unhappy face. “I told you this thing is akin to a light elemental. Each time it wakes up it’s making use of the way light works in this plane of existence, mixing it up with a helping of its own intrinsic weirdness, and using it to jump around.”

“The mirror,” Sam says suddenly, and Lucifer turns a pleased expression on him. 

“Yes,” the archangel replies softly. “Exactly.”

“That’s how it’s been moving from place to place,” Sam whispers, shaking his head. At Dean’s confused look he puts a hand to his forehead. “That’s why you brought the mirror with us. It’s travelling through the damned mirrors. But... _how?_ Light bounces _off_ mirrors, not- not _in._ ”

Lucifer shrugs. “Intrinsic weirdness, Sam. To a certain extent this thing is powerful enough that it can affect reality with its dreams and even bend the rules of it with its memories.”

“This is all a bit too Lovecraft for me,” Bobby says gruffly. The old hunter has been lingering by the door, leaning against one of the sideboards, hat in hand, as he watches what's going down through narrowed, wary eyes.

Dean puts his hands up. “Okay, I don’t know what the hell any of you are talking about right now. Dreams? Memories? Can we drop the New Age crap please?”

Lucifer puts his head on one side, giving Dean an almost disappointed look. “Right now the creature is mostly sleeping, Dean, down there in the earth, in its underground lair. And every time it dreams you get a rash of omens across the nearby land. White dogs, poisoned crops, all things that mean something to it but make no sense to anyone in this world.”

“The dog,” Sam says. “You said it, it _rode_ it up.”

With a nod, the archangel agrees. “It did. It would have called it down into the tunnels and then possessed it until it found a better way to travel-”

“The mirror in the guard cabin,” Sam finishes for him.

“Which is where it’s bending reality to fit its own memories of back home - that’s an impressive feat as an aside, not just any creature is strong enough to do that. And once inside the mirror it went hunting, returning each time just a little bit stronger.”

“Strong enough it doesn’t need the dog to walk back?” Sam ventures.

Lucifer shrugs again. “It’s probably a bit more complex than that, but essentially yes.”

“Are you saying this damned thing is jumping into a mirror and what? Jumping out another mirror when it sees something it wants to snack on?” Dean demands.

For a second Sam and Lucifer share a look, and then Sam turns to his brother and nods. “Yeah. Basically.”

“Christ.”

There’s a sudden buzzing, and Bobby turns away, hooking his phone out of his pocket. He grimaces at the screen before picking up and moving to the over side of the room to answer it. Sam runs his hands through his hair, feeling the shiver of vertigo that hits whenever the world is once more pulled out from beneath his feet. The burn of shocked anger is still strong in him, but he should have known this was going too well.

“So where is it now?” Dean asks, and his voice is far more calm than Sam thinks he could manage.

“Sleeping,” Lucifer replies. “What happened up at the mine, that was just it turning over in its sleep. It didn’t wake up fully, or there’d be a whole lot more problems for anything looking too tasty right now.”

Sam narrows his eyes at the joke. The thing may be targeting Leviathans, but it’s still caused collateral damage on an unacceptable scale. “You vanished the mirror, is it trapped up there now?”

The archangel shrugs. “I doubt it. It got into those mineshafts somehow, I expect they lead back to wherever the dragons pulled Eve out of Purgatory.”

“The sewers, fuck,” Sam says.

Lucifer takes a step closer to him, dipping his head to try to catch Sam’s eye. “It’s not awake yet, Sam. There’s still time. And taking the mirror will ruin its day the next time it tries to get out. Perhaps even mean it has to go back to sleep before it tries again.”

It’s a strange feeling to be the recipient of Lucifer’s attempt at comfort, awkward and a little embarrassing, not least because right now he could really use some calm words to clear his head. Catching the concerned narrowing of Dean’s eyes, Sam shakes his head. He’s not just freaking out, he’s pissed off too. 

“You said you could capture it, contain it,” Dean says.

It takes Lucifer a beat before he takes his eyes off Sam. “Yes. I’ll need to create a tool to do it, but that’s one thing I can do easily enough. Then we’ll just need to lure it out, and…” He lifts his hands, palms up, as though in offering.

Dean nods shortly. “What do you need to build this tool?”

Lucifer looks thoughtful. “Mirrors,” he says after a moment. “Old ones, but good quality. Metal. Tools to work the metal.”

Dean frowns and Sam interrupts before he can reply. “Why don’t you just snap it into existence? You seem to be back to doing that now.”

“Actually, the less magic is involved, the better,” Lucifer admits. “It’s part of how we’ll negate its abilities. The more mundane a thing, the harder it is for the creature to bend it to its imagination.”

For a long second Sam stares at the archangel, mouth thinned into an unhappy line, then he shakes his head sharply. “Fine. Whatever.”

With a glance over at Bobby, Dean says, “We’ll start looking to see what’s in town for...old mirrors.”

“Yeah, fine,” Sam nods quickly. “I’m just going to- I’ll be back in a minute to help.”

Dean gives him a quizzical look, then sighs at the tension he sees in Sam’s face. With a shake of his head he steps away, but his eyes don’t leave his brother’s back as Sam makes for the door and slips back outside into the parking lot.

“I wouldn’t,” he says flatly, as Lucifer makes to follow. The archangel gives him a dark look, eyebrow rising slowly, and Dean snorts at the expression. “You wind him up any more than he already is you’ll pay for it.”

“Is that so?” Lucifer asks softly.

“Yes it is. And if you are fucking with us right now, you’ll pay for that too. But I’m going to cut you some slack because I don’t think you are." Dean takes a moment to look the archangel up and down, letting his gaze settle unimpressed back on the angel's cold eyes. "I think you’re scared you’re in over your head, because Sam’s not playing ball like you expected him to. You thought this would be easier, didn’t you? Whisper a few sweet nothings in his ear, get him on board, have him eating out of your hand? Well, buddy. I’ve got news for you. A lot of shit’s happened since you got locked in the Cage, and my brother’s come through more than you can ever understand.”

Dean pauses, nodding to himself. Lucifer is still and silent, his gaze unwavering and were this any other situation Dean might have been intimidated. But he can't let this bastard see any kind of fear in him, and what's more, he hadn't missed the note of absolute command in his brother's voice earlier on in the parking lot. There hadn't been a single moment's hesitation there when Sam had ordered the angel back inside. The speed and certainty of it had, quite honestly, reassured Dean. “He’s stronger than you, just like he always was. So you just keep doing your little best to get us out of this, or Sam’s going to put you right back where you came from. Got it? Now, why don’t you go make us list of exactly what you need, you arrogant chicken shit, and we’ll see about helping you out.”

The ice in Lucifer’s blue eyes is colder than all the winds of the Antarctic as he meets Dean’s gaze. It’s the look of an ancient and proud celestial being having to restrain itself for the sake of a peace it never wanted. Once, Dean might have flinched before that gaze. Now he simply offers it an unimpressed smile and watches the rage burn colder.

“Pen and paper’s on the table,” he says helpfully.

He watches as in slow, grim silence, Lucifer brushes past him and goes to make his list.


	16. The Making Of A Miracle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The making of a miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second of the weekend chapters.

The day has turned grey and cold, the sun of midday hidden now behind a bank of encroaching cloud. Sam leans on the railing at the far side of the parking lot from their row of rooms and watches the cars pass on the road. It’s quiet enough down this little side street, but even so he knows he should be watching his back, keeping his head down and out of sight. The Leviathans are still on their heels, even if they haven’t seen any since the cabin. They still don’t really know how they’d been spotted back there, even though Bobby thinks it had started with the truckers. 

Sam tightens his grip on the railing until his knuckles whiten, and stares down at the gravel beneath his feet. It occurs to him suddenly that in all of this madness they’ve not once asked Lucifer if he knows how to get rid of the Leviathans for good. He shakes his head in disbelief at himself. The situation has become either something so normalised, or something so insurmountable that neither of them has even considered there might be an end to it. He clenches his teeth, scowling down at his boots. Not that asking Lucifer for help appears to be doing them any damned good.

It’s the whisper of wings that gives the archangel away, and Sam breathes out a long, careful breath, trying to get a grip on his frustration before he does something to jeopardise their fragile progress. 

“You’re angry with me.” 

The words are not a question, and Sam snorts. He can feel Lucifer’s presence next to him and a little way back. Distance enough to be polite, far enough that he’s not quite intruding. So different from Castiel.

“How is it that you can flap us around all of a sudden?” he asks, and can hear the edge to his own voice.

Lucifer takes a long few seconds before he replies. “I’ve gotten my feet under me somewhat in the last few weeks. The hot springs helped.” 

He pauses, but Sam gives him no encouragement. 

“Just as you’ve been grounding yourself, so have I, Sam. It may seem impressive to you, but flying is natural to me, just as much as walking is to you. But I assure you I’m hardly dancing jigs over here.”

“You’re not doing a whole lot of anything really, are you?”

The angel’s sigh is mostly lost beneath the engine of a passing car, and Sam wonders if he simply imagined the reaction. The dismay in him has boiled through anger and begun to reach the edges of despair now, the visions of what that damned creature is going to do to the world, what it’s _already_ done, still stark in his mind.

“If you’re slowing us down on purpose, just to spend longer outside of the Cage, don’t think I’ll hesitate for a single second to command you to do what we need.”

He hears the gravel crunch beneath the archangel’s foot as Lucifer takes a slow step forward, drawing level with him. Sam’s grip on the iron rail is the only thing that’s stopping his arms from shaking with all the pent up anger and fear and dread that he’s made a mistake, that Dean was right and he’s brought this bastard back only to get played again.

“I’m not,” Lucifer says simply. “But I’m not able to kill it quite yet. I’ll do the next best thing for you, Sam. I _will_ contain this beast for you.”

There’s sincerity in Lucifer’s voice, but Sam’s heard that tone from him before so many times, from promising him the world to swearing he’ll burn it all for him, and right now all he sees is another failure, another gamble that hasn’t paid off. Another lie couched in truth.

“Lucifer, you said you’d kill it- you _promised_ me,” he rasps, finally turning his head to meet the archangel’s eyes.

There’s something unfathomable in Lucifer’s expression, deep and potent and it makes Sam fight not to step away. The archangel draws himself up and for the first time in a long time Sam sees some of that old archangelic pride in him, timeless and powerful and with nothing childish about it at all.

“Sam,” Lucifer says, and his voice is low, full of the ancient will that makes Sam shiver in memory. “I have fallen twice. I have protected you in the darkness. I am an archangel, of the first-forged creations of God, and I have submitted myself to your binding. My power is greatly diminished from what it once was, and you no longer trust me. My power is yours, and vice versa, but I can only access it if you are willing to give it to me.”

“I am!”

“No, Sam. You aren’t.”

Lucifer takes a half step closer to him, far inside the boundaries of Sam’s personal space, close enough that were he anything but angelic Sam would have been able to feel the heat of his breath. He smells of the open mountain, and a scent that Sam recognises but cannot name. For a second Sam thinks that Lucifer will reach up and touch him. But the angel simply stands close, watching him with all the intensity of his kind, and when he speaks he doesn’t need to raise his voice above the soft, intimate tone that Sam recognises all too well. 

“I will do whatever you ask of me, Sam. And I won’t hold back, but I can only work with what you give me. And if you will not give me your trust, then I will do what I can with what I have left.” 

Sam swallows, throat dry. Lucifer's proximity makes it hard to think past the thrill in his blood, to separate trauma-born fear from shrewd caution. Even bound as the archangel is, for him to offer such service is inconsistent with the being of depthless pride Sam knows him to be. 

“Why?” he asks.

Lucifer draws in a breath and his smile is little more than a twist of his mouth to show his teeth. “Because I _want_ to.”

The answer surprises him, so honest and without guile is it. Sam blinks, taken aback by the simple decisiveness of the statement, a little shocked by the relish with which the archangel says it. He doesn’t understand the motivation that puts such determination in Lucifer’s eyes, but he recognises the force of it. It’s the absolute certainty of a creature that cannot, _will not_ be challenged.

It takes long moments before Sam finds the strength to break the archangel’s gaze. He blinks, swallowing against the dryness in his throat and wonders what the sudden thrill in his muscles is. He feels like he could dance, like he could fight anything or face down any foe. It’s Lucifer’s certainty, Lucifer’s willpower that’s buoying him, he realises suddenly. The potency of it is raw and very real and he remembers it from those days of shared being when they’d been two people inside one body. 

_Don’t get lost in it again,_ he warns himself.

Still, when he nods in awkward acknowledgement of the archangel’s words there’s the old rush of anticipation, of pleasure in knowing that the creature he’s working with is so phenomenally dangerous, so insurmountably powerful, and that it has, in its own way, very much got his back. He frowns against the thought. Lucifer _does not_ have his back. Lucifer spent all of those hundred and twenty years of their stay together in the Cage burning the knowledge of his cruelty into Sam’s every sinew, until even his blood sang with the agony of it.

But that wasn’t Lucifer, was it? That was the Cage, that monstrous construct of divine punishment. _If_ he believes Lucifer, that is. Lucifer who doesn’t lie, but who doesn’t always tell the whole of the truth.

They walk back to the motel in silence, and Sam shivers the whole way. 

  
  


*

The town their motel sits in has little in the way of antique or thrift stores, and Lucifer turns his nose up at the idea of simply ordering off the internet. He needs to _hold_ the piece, to feel that it’s exactly what is required, which elicits nothing but disdainful eye-rolling from Dean. Sam understands though, and he takes the archangel with him, heading out along the highway in Bobby’s truck, just the two of them in a silence that’s far more relaxed than it has any right to be.

Sam finds them a small, backwater town off the highway filled with sleepy rows of houses and an old-fashioned main street, full of knick-knack stores and antique sellers. The average age of the population seems to be somewhere just past sixty, which bodes well for what they’ll find amongst the jumble of thrift stores.

Lucifer follows Sam obediently, ghosting along in his wake from thrift store to junk shop, cold blue eyes roving over piles of other people’s belongings with clinical discernment. People linger and stare at them both, at Sam’s height and Lucifer’s icy blue gaze. The pair of them together are striking in a way that no-one watching can quite put their finger on - charismatic and handsome, charming and curiously electric. Without even trying they draw attention, and the archangel turns strange, superior looks on their admirers, making them flinch away, while Sam hurries to pay. 

Between them they collect hand mirrors and make-up mirrors, full length mirrors and even a small decorative wooden box. Lucifer picks out the darkest black velvet he can find from the nearby craft shop, along with thin sheets of silver metal that Sam would never have expected to see amongst the fabric and glitter. This time it’s him that trawls up and down the rows, looking at printing blocks and paint, candle wax and tiny paper flowers. Lucifer comes to collect him when he’s done, holding his hand out for the card that Sam insists they pay with, still embarrassed after the first time when Lucifer had simply turned the full force of his otherworldly charisma on a store clerk and charmed their way out of the shop with a six foot wrought-iron framed standing mirror. The archangel remains unconvinced by Sam’s horror and impatient with his guilt. 

“Six hundred dollars is nothing compared to the fate of the world, Sam.”

They arrive back to find Bobby and Dean eating pizza in the main room, just as the first fat drops of rain start to fall. Dean looks them both up and down as they come in, gaze lingering on the craft store bag Sam has in one hand. 

“You buy glue and macaroni too?” he asks, and Sam glares at him. “What about glitter?”

“Shut up.”

While they’ve been gone the phones have fallen silent. Dean casts an unhappy glare at the map and Sam steps forward to look at the pins. There’s a few more here and there, closer to the vicinity of the abandoned mining town, but in truth the isolation of the place appears to be having a shielding effect. 

“It's sleeping again, for now.” Lucifer affords the map only the barest of glances. “But that sleep is light and it will stir again soon.”

He sets the full length mirror down on the carpet with a soft thunk, and turns his attention to Bobby. “You have a welding machine in your truck. I want to use it.”

Amongst the many tools Bobby carries with him, the small portable welding machine had been intended to help them fix up the cabin should it have required repairs. Hardly an industrial device, Lucifer nonetheless declares it fit enough for his purposes, and after conceding the point that setting up a workshop in the motel parking lot is likely to draw too much unwanted attention, he allows Sam to find them somewhere nearby to work. This time the others come with them, and for the first time Dean allows the archangel to ride in the Impala. Sam sits twisted on the front bench, trying to keep both his brother and the archangel in sight, while Lucifer sprawls in the back, looking from one brother to another with a smirk that even manages to get under Sam’s skin. If Dean had intended this unusual ride to contain any kind of conversation then the idea falls quite flat.

There’s an abandoned gas station sitting ten miles down the road, and by the time they pull in the rain is falling in a steady, thunderous roar. Dean kills the engine and leans forward over the wheel, looking up into the heavy sky. Bobby pulls up next to them in his truck, and with a grim look at one another, the brothers get out. It’s the work of moments for them to break into the workshop round the side, finding nothing but dust and a pile of old, discarded tarps left behind to rot. 

“This do you?” 

Lucifer enters, great mirror tucked under one arm, and looks around with an air of weary affliction. His cool gaze takes in the empty shelves still bolted to the walls, and the worktop that runs along one side coated with a layer of grime.

“It will suffice,” he manages, and Dean snorts, grimly entertained by the archangel's affront. 

“You’re gonna need power,” Bobby says, sheltering in the doorway. “You want me to hook the genny up?”

Lucifer’s expression conveys quite clearly the disgust with which he views the use of such basic tools, but he nods nonetheless, and offers the old hunter a winsome smile. “That would be most appreciated, Bobby.”

Bobby leaves with a scowl, pulling the peak of his hat down low against the downpour, and the brothers once more exchange glances.

“So now what?” Sam asks.

“Now,” Lucifer replies, turning to him. “I create a miracle for you.”

  
  


*

  
  


The windshield of the Impala is a river of water, and Dean leans back to watch the rain pour. The afternoon has begun to fade into evening, the sky already darkened by the thick cloud cover. He takes a sip of coffee and lets the steam warm his face. Beneath the bitterness it tastes of cardboard carry-out cup and the strange tang of water that’s been too long in the coffee machine. The passenger door opens and Bobby ducks inside, sweeping his hat from his head and rubbing the rain from his cheeks.

“Damn near flooding out there,” the old hunter mutters, reaching for his own coffee stashed on the dash.

Dean glances at him. “They doing all right in there?”

Bobby peels off the plastic cup lid and takes a long drink before he answers. He pulls out a wrapped sandwich from the rain-speckled convenience store bag at his feet and begins to pick at the cardboard. “They’re doing their thing. Archangel is anyway.”

Dean’s mouth narrows into a thin line, and he looks out across the gas station forecourt to the closed doors of the workshop. If he listens carefully he can just hear the hum of the generator over the pouring of the rain. 

“Sam seem jumpy to you?”

For a long time Bobby doesn’t answer. He finishes his first sandwich, then turns to his coffee, his eyes on the empty road that stretches off across into the distance. They’re ten miles from town and a hundred from anywhere else out here, this route long since gone silent with the death of the town further inland, and the loss of a community. The scars of an aborted Apocalypse still blight the landscape of America, rarely spoken of but always present.

“He’s got the Devil on a leash, boy. Standing next to him every damned second of the day. You expect him to be dancing for joy?”

Dean shakes his head and looks away. There’s a flicker of light from beneath the workshop doors, bright as an angel’s wings and quick like lightning. One of them is welding something together, some part of the trap that Lucifer’s constructing for the beast. Dean can feel his skin itching with the need to understand what’s being built, but the archangel had been impatient to begin and reluctant to give details. It infuriates Dean that Sam wouldn’t push him on the matter, but his brother had just shrugged and said the sooner started the better. Dean's starting not to like the look in his little brother’s eyes these past few days. That complex mixture of fear and curiosity that’s gotten him into so much shit in the past and dragged Dean chasing along after him.

“I’m worried about him, Bobby.”

Bobby grunts and starts on his next sandwich. Dean throws him an exasperated look, then shakes his head. It’s not his way to talk about his brother behind his back, but these last few weeks, hell, these last few goddamn years, he just doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to look out for him any more. And that’s what he does, he looks out for him. It’s what he’s always done.

“Sam’s got a lot on his mind right now,” Bobby says finally. “He doesn’t need you pulling the rug out from under him every damned minute. That angel bastard is doing that well enough for him as it is. Just be his brother, Dean. Be someone he can put his back to, and quit yer damn bellyaching.”

For a second the rain outside intensifies, beating down loud enough to drown out any further speech, and the two of them pause, both leaning forward to look up into the sky. Long moments pass, and then the downpour eases again, just enough that the roar of water on metal fades back to a manageable level.

“‘Nother storm coming in,” Bobby adds.

Dean shakes his head and doesn’t reply.

  
  
  


*

  
  


It turns out that the creation of a miracle is a slow process. Sam sits on an upturned crate in the corner of the damp old workshop and watches Lucifer work. The rain is hammering down outside, and the angel works by the stark illumination of a portable floodlight slung over a rafter above. It, like Bobby’s small welding kit, is plugged into the generator outside, the busy hum of the machine and the stink of its diesel engine a constant thrum below the drumming of the rain.

Sam watches in silence as Lucifer works. Their assorted array of purchases are laid out around him, the mirrors great and small, the wooden box, the fabric. The archangel sits amidst his materials and works with a concentration that Sam hasn’t seen on him since before the Cage. He’s well aware of the archangel’s capacity to hyper-focus, but to see it now, from the outside, rather than watching from inside his own head is strangely jarring. 

With an ease that belies the strength it requires, Lucifer lifts the heavy full length mirror from its place on the floor and begins to take it to pieces. Sam finds himself following the movements of the angel’s hands, fascinated by the deftness with which he manipulates the materials. Even knowing the awesome strength of an angel his eyebrows still rise as he watches Lucifer unbend the decorative coils of the iron frame, bending them back into long, thin strips with only his fingers. It makes Sam pause, almost breathless with the realisation of how lax he’s become, how close he’s allowed the archangel to get to him. Binding bracelet or not, rules or none, there have been many times over the last few weeks that the archangel could have reached out and snapped his neck with little more than a casual twist of his grip.

But as Lucifer continues to work, focussed in on his task, Sam finds the unease slipping away. Idly he turns the bracelet on his wrist, feeling the solid, unyielding loops of its chain press into the meat of his finger pads. A safeguard against any foolishness - his or the archangel’s.

Time passes in a silence broken only by the thrum of the rain and the clink and lightning spit of the welding gun. Lucifer takes the little wooden box and encases it in sheets of metal, lining the inside with black velvet. Then, in a glint of mercury he draws his angel blade from the air, using it to cut the mirrors into pieces small enough to fit every inside surface. Sam listens to the thin, high whine the sword tip makes as it slices lines down the mirrors, wincing as Lucifer uses his bare hands to snap them into the shapes he requires. He works swiftly and with absolute confidence, either unconcerned by the potential for wounding or completely oblivious to it. 

With an artisan’s skill the archangel sits the silvered box in the palm of one hand, and then with infinite care uses just the tip of his blade to engrave symbols into every outside surface. The sigils glow as his sword passes across the metal in fluid loops and curves, the handwriting of an archangel written in silver and Enochian. Finally, he leans back to admire his work, and from the corner by the door, Sam straightens too. But the archangel isn’t finished. His free hand he holds up, index and middle fingers raised, thumb curled in to touch his ring finger in a gesture that Sam recognises with a start as one of the oldest of angelic blessings. 

The archangel passes his hand across the top of the box in a pattern that Sam doesn’t recognise, and the words he speaks have the sibilant, multi-toned hum of true Enochian, spoken in the way only an angel can. For just a second the air is still and the sound of the rain is gone, as though the whole of reality has paused to hold its breath, then, with a suddenness like the rushing back of a great wave, the roar of the rain resumes and the world jumps back into motion.

Lucifer raises his eyes to Sam and climbs fluidly to his feet. Feeling the hairs on his arms standing on end, Sam stands too, finding his throat dry when he swallows. There’s something electric about the look in the archangel’s eyes, and when he reaches out his hand to present the box to Sam it takes a moment before he can break from the angel’s gaze to look down at it.

The box, a small rectangle no larger than Lucifer’s palm, gleams silver in the light of the single flood lamp. Delicate Enochian sigils flow across its surface in intricately etched sentences, few of which Sam can understand. Hesitantly he reaches out, and at Lucifer’s encouraging nod, lifts the box from the angel’s palm. The lid opens smoothly to reveal the glitter and flash of tiny mirrors, each inner plane of the box a surface that reflects its opposite in thousandfold tunnels of never-ending depth. Regardless of its intended use, it’s a remarkable, beautiful piece of work, and Sam raises his eyes to meet Lucifer’s, impressed beyond his ability to hide.

The archangel’s expression shifts from anticipation to a strangely wistful satisfaction as he meets Sam’s gaze. He tilts him a crooked, almost self-conscious smile, and reaches up to close Sam’s fingers around the box.

“I would have made this from diamonds and obsidian for you once, pulled from the heart of stars.”

Taken aback, Sam wets his lips, feeling the pressure of the angel’s attention like a weight on his body. Lucifer is watching him with an intensity that’s borderline intimidating. 

“Will it work?” he manages.

“Oh yes,” Lucifer replies. “It will work, Sam.” 

His fingers are cool against Sam’s skin, and for just a second Sam recalls the strength in them that can straighten out metal with no more than a touch. Outside there’s a long, low rumble of thunder, distant for now but drawing in as swiftly as the night is falling. Lucifer runs the pad of his thumb gently across the back of Sam’s hand, a soft, intimate gesture that makes Sam still in surprise. The archangel stands haloed by the lamplight, but his eyes are angel-bright in the shadows of his face, the silver-blue gleam of something not really of this world. 

“You promise?” Sam asks, and for a second feels himself teetering on the knife-edge between fear and need, weak despite the chains he’s holding that bind this creature down. On a simple, logical level, Sam understands that it’s sheer folly to trust the Devil. But there’s another part of him, a small, patient voice, that’s telling him over and over that this isn’t the same. The part that’s missed the creature standing in front of him, missed the cool-eyed, smooth-tongued son of God and the cosmic scale of his self-righteous arrogance. The cold fire and fury of him, and the knowing, indulgent sinfulness. The little voice that says maybe this time there’s going to be a different outcome.

“I promise,” Lucifer says softly.

Outside the sky flickers white with sheet lightning. In the distance the thunder pauses for breath before it speaks, and the world is filled up with the unceasing downpour of the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still think about how much effect the biblical Apocalypse, averted or not, would have had on the world. Seeing it from a non-hunter POV, how people would deal with the things that went on. Anyway, one step closer to capturing the creature and seeing what's going on in that archangel's mind. :]


	17. The Storm Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The monster rolls over in its sleep. Lucifer, guardian angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one chapter today, because the next three are something of a set.

They chase the storm back to their motel, and by the time they pull into the parking lot the sky is dark with more than just the fall of night. It’s close on seven by the time they get back into the rooms and unpack, shaking the rain from their hair. The question now is what they do next, but it’s easily answered by Lucifer who pulls out his stack of notes and declares that he has rewriting to do to match their new plan. The wind thus somewhat removed from their sails, Dean and Bobby take themselves back to the room they’re sharing, and Sam, already having turned down the idea of shooting pool in a nearby bar, leaves Lucifer sat at the kitchenette table and retreats to his room to lie down, the memory of Dean’s unhappy stare following him the whole way.

With the bedroom door shut firmly behind him, he leans back against the thin wood and closes his eyes. Outside the storm is lashing rain against the windowpanes, and every so often the flicker of sheet lightning lights up sky. Sam is suddenly deeply glad that the emptiness of the motel had meant they’d managed to book this suite. Bobby and Dean have the twin room down the corridor, while he and Lucifer have claimed the apartment suite on the understanding that Sam’s the only one using the bedroom and the archangel can use the main room to work. Right now it’s a level of privacy for which he’s thoroughly grateful. 

Rubbing at his temples Sam feels the throbbing of the headache he’s been carrying all day. Stress, he thinks. The sheer breakneck speed of brushing up against the monster at the mine this morning, then racing round dusty old antique stores over lunch, then sitting watching Lucifer carve a miracle out of brick-a-brac and prayer in the afternoon. It’s been a lot for one day, and he can hardly believe that until yesterday morning they were still blissfully unaware even of the creature’s location. Pushing off the door he crosses to the bed, his body aching with fatigue but his mind still racing. 

Somehow he can feel Lucifer in the room next door. His ability to sense the archangel’s presence is becoming more finely tuned as the days go on. He’s like a background hum, like the high-pitched whistle of an old TV set left turned on but silent, or the sense of potential that tells you when there’s an animal in a house. But Lucifer’s no pet cat hidden upstairs curled up on the bed, he’s a monstrous force of primeval power, and despite everything he’s said, every binding laid down on him, Sam’s still not entirely sure where the hell he stands with him. 

Kicking off his boots he stretches out on the bed and stares up at the flicker and play of light across the ceiling. There’s a persistent anxiety roiling within him, making him feel restless and sick to the pit of his stomach. It’s been nearly four weeks since he had a vision of Lucifer. No sly smiles, no threats couched in whispered obscenities; no filthy, sarcastic comments spoken directly into his ear to make him jump. Only the cool, implacable presence of the archangel in the flesh, watchful and silent. 

This Lucifer is just so different from the one that’s spent weeks tormenting his every waking moment. The contrast is so jarring that Sam is once again forced to face the possibility that Lucifer hadn’t been lying about the effects of the Cage. The archangel’s claims may be closer to the truth than anything Sam’s own tormented reasoning is letting him believe. It’s a reluctant admission and one that, despite all the evidence, he finds himself unable to fully trust. He’s spent just over three weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for the archangel to spring his trap, and yet he simply...hasn’t. The idea that Lucifer is merely biding his time, stringing Sam along until he lowers his guard, ready to strike when he’s least expecting it is one that lingers permanently in the back of Sam’s mind. The thought of it makes his limbs tremble in fear, the pain of that kick while he was already down not one he thinks he could survive again. Sam is strong, but life’s trials have been so many, so often. He’s not sure he can take any more. 

Running his hands through his hair he grips hard and tugs, trying to bring himself back to focus, to block out the fear that screams hysterically inside him. He’s in control, the spell is secure and the binding bracelet, even if it should somehow fail, upon doing so will immediately drop the link between them, sending Lucifer straight back to the Cage. The archangel won’t even have chance to get a hit in before it drags him back down. The thought should be a comfort, and to Sam’s absolute lack of surprise, it’s not. 

He thinks again of Lucifer’s eyes across the table back in that steak house, the sincerity in his gaze, and the sudden stark clarity of perspective that had told him the angel had been telling the truth. There’d been something tired and sad in Lucifer’s expression, an emotion that had lit Sam’s nerves up with alarm and confusion. He doesn’t understand himself, how he can go from knowing and believing Lucifer in one moment, to doubting him so thoroughly the next. Enough that the idea of breaking the spell and sending him back to the Cage is beginning to feel like the safest choice.

The wind sends a battering of rain against the window, loud in the otherwise quiet of the room. Sam remembers how it had felt to stand with Lucifer in the soothing heat of the hot springs, to see the lazy satisfaction on the archangel’s face and feel the peace of the surrounding land filling them both. He imagines it might have been nice to have stayed there longer just listening to him talk of the days before time really began. The memory of Lucifer reaching for him on the night when the beast had trapped him in its dreaming flickers into his mind, followed quickly by the way he’d grabbed blindly for the archangel in return. Sam doesn’t really know what to make of that. He remembers again the soft touch of the archangel’s thumb, a gentle caress across the back of his hand as he’d closed Sam’s fingers over the trinket that’s supposed to save them all. 

It would be so easy to trust him. So easy to believe the Devil’s words, to let himself brace against the monumental strength of an archangel, the sheer cosmic power of him. He’s tired though, he’s so fucking tired of being used.

Sam falls asleep to the sound of the rain on the windowpane, a continuous rattle of sound as relentless as the thoughts chasing themselves round in his head.

  
  


*  
  
  


The motel bedroom has a single cheap-looking wardrobe with chipped edges and a narrow, full length mirror, pocked at the corners with black spots, hanging on the outside of one door. Sam comes awake to the roar of the storm and for a second doesn’t know where the light is coming from. He watches the flicker of lightning illuminate the room, and listens to the thunder roll ponderously overhead, waiting to confirm that it had been nothing but the storm that had woken him. 

Satisfied by the silence he lies on his side to watch the rain through the window. The bedside clock reads three, and he’s just thinking he should get up and undress properly when he realises there’s a glow he doesn’t recognise lifting the darkness of the room. It’s like someone’s left a TV on, but the only TV in this suite is out in the main room. Uncertain, he rolls over, and that’s when his brain catches up with his eyes.

The mirror on the wardrobe is glowing with a soft, white light, the colour of the underside of a summer’s cloud. A gentle, diffuse luminescence, it stirs slowly, like a mist pressing up behind a pane of glass. Without conscious thought Sam finds himself on his feet, drawn by the eerie beauty of it until he’s padding silently across the room. It comes to him only when he’s less than two feet away that what he’s doing is madness. In that second he realises with awful clarity what the thing in the mirror must be, and he flinches hard, scrambling back to put some distance between them. Opening his mouth he calls out for Lucifer, and to his shock finds that he has neither retreated nor spoken. An electric fear sparks up his spine as no matter how hard he fights to regain control of his limbs his body continues to move itself slowly closer to the mirror.

Heavy with foreboding the light in the room has turned sour, the pure white of a summer cloud gone yellow and tarnished, pale like the underbelly of a dead fish. Sam can feel a dampness on the air and the sickly sweet scent of rotting flowers seeps into his lungs. He struggles against his paralysis, a sudden, horrified nausea filling up his stomach, his heart pounding in his chest so loud he can hear it. There’s a presence on the air, an awful feeling of someone, some _thing_ else standing right next to him, a weight of being hovering half a degree away from reality. 

The surface of the mirror stirs, and without his permission Sam’s arm reaches up to touch it. Inside he’s howling, struggling desperately to stop himself from moving, knowing that if he does this then something truly awful is going to happen. But his hand continues to reach and suddenly his fingers are pressing against the surface of the mirror, and then on through the glass. 

What lies beyond is cold and damply gelatinous, like touching the flesh of something dead for far too long. Without warning it shifts beneath his fingers, whipping past in a blur of movement, and a great, milky eye opens up beneath his palm. Sam screams then, feeling the terrible attention of that awful thing as the great, putrescent pupil contracts to focus on him. He feels it in his head, a monumental pressure squeezing his mind and infiltrating his thoughts with wormlike, parasitic tendrils, and with every part of his being he revolts against it.

The bed is damp with his sweat and his shirt is clinging to him when Sam snaps awake. He scrambles upright, confused and terrified, choking on disgust and still feeling the creeping touch of the beast threading its way inexorably into his head. He kicks out at the memory of the thing pulling him closer, pulse racing, breath out of control and ends up missing the side of the mattress with his reaching palm, finding only air and tumbling to the floor in an ungainly heap. 

It’s dark around him, that sickly pearlescent light no longer filling the room with its eerie pull. Even so the flicker of lightning makes him jump, and he cannot shake the feeling that the creature hasn’t gone anywhere, that it’s still in his head, pulling on his muscles and working his body like a puppet. Sam lurches to his feet, breathless with fear in his half-awake state, and staggers to the door. It’s suddenly vitally important to him to get out, to drive this damned thing out from where it’s crouching in his mind, and there’s only one person he knows that can do that.

Lucifer is standing at the window in the main room, the TV playing silently behind him, and he’s already looking at Sam before the bedroom door has even fully opened. Sam draws up short, and suddenly in the dimmed light of the main room the world seems even more at odds. The television is playing CNN and the time at the bottom of the screen is closer to ten pm than three in the morning. Outside the storm is still raging, the rolling of the thunder ferocious enough that it shivers the thin motel walls. Lucifer stands framed by the window, the rain lashing down and the lightning turning his face to shadow pierced only by the thin silver gleam of his eyes. To Sam, at that moment, he is the only certain thing in this world.

He’s not entirely sure how he makes it all the way across the room without stumbling. His limbs are still in that crazed, sluggish place between nightmare and waking, and he can’t shake the thought that there’s something nesting in his head, pulling at his body and trying to drag him back. 

“Lucifer,” he manages.

The archangel is watching him with an unreadable expression, something oddly blank and borderline wary, and the sheer lack of a response from him makes Sam want to yell. He wants to grab the archangel and shake him, plead with him to take this damned thing out of his head, to cut the strings that bind him to a fate that seems always to loop back round to servitude and damnation. With one shaking hand he reaches out and closes his fingers around Lucifer’s arm. 

The archangel doesn’t flinch - he stands as still and unyielding as a marble statue, and the muscles beneath Sam’s hand are hard with the rigidity of grace-imbued flesh. He’s inert as stone, and even though he’s the taller of the two of them, Sam can feel the archangel looking down at him, eyes cold and unreadable. 

“What have you done to me?” he rasps, and is horrified by the scratchiness of his voice. “Lucifer, why do I- I feel like I’m going mad. I can’t- please, I just can’t take this any more.”

 _“Sam.”_

The archangel’s voice is a soft whisper, and it’s filled with a sadness that reaches deep into Sam’s chest and squeezes hard on some part of his heart he hadn’t even known was still there. He wants to press in close to him, to rest his forehead against the immoveable solidity of the angel’s breast and let him take all of this nightmarish horror away. When Lucifer reaches up and puts his palm to the back of Sam’s neck to draw him in, he doesn’t resist. 

The archangel’s touch is cautious, as though he’s willing but remembers all too well the times that Sam has bitten him for overstepping his bounds. Carefully, and then with more confidence as he meets no resistance, he slides his hand from the back of Sam’s neck around to cup his cheek, pressing with the pad of his thumb until Sam lifts his chin and his gaze upwards. Even in the light of the main room the angel’s eyes gleam, and it’s a whisper of power that makes Sam’s bones shiver with it, not in fear but in recognition. Lucifer is dangerous and awesome in his fury, but right now he’s the one certainty of sanity in this world.

With the slightest tilt of his head, Lucifer leans forward - closer than is polite, much closer than Sam would ever have allowed once - and searches Sam’s eyes. It’s not clear what he’s looking for, but Sam can feel the whisper of his breath across his mouth, startlingly cold like he holds the very essence of winter inside him. He is a black hole formed of celestial dimensions, irresistible and inevitable, that draws in all the heat in the world, all that has the capacity to witness him. It’s unnerving, but it’s a fear of a different kind to the one the beast provokes. This fear is a fascination, an acknowledgement of mortality in the presence of something ancient and primordial. Perhaps he should be more afraid.

It’s then that the door to the room opens and Dean steps inside, brushing rain out of his hair and cursing the weather. He pulls up short, the storm coiling in around his feet through the still open door, shocked frozen by what he sees. Startled, Sam turns his head to meet his brother’s eyes, and in that moment whatever hold on him he’s given over to the archangel is broken. He realises how this must look, how once more Dean has found him crawling back to the darkside in the shame of his own weakness. There’s a monster in his head and here is Sam turning to the biggest monster of them all, the creature that tried to wear him to burn the world. 

He lets go of Lucifer’s arm as though he’s been burned, pulling sharply away from the archangel’s hand. Lucifer frowns, but doesn’t stop him. Staggering, Sam turns on his heel and flees for the dubious safety of the bedroom. He needs space, privacy to get his damned head together and get control of the panic that’s still shivering in his veins. Behind him Dean says something sharp, and then Sam hears the beat of his footsteps following. 

The bedroom is still dark, almost cloyingly so, but there’s light in Sam’s head and he can no longer tell if it’s real or imagined. Away from the distraction of the archangel's presence his hand still feels coated with the gelatinous foulness of the beast’s skin, the clammy wetness of its eye slippery and rotten beneath his palm, and it’s enough to make him gag. His heart is thumping wildly, and he can feel the inescapable light-headedness that accompanies hyperventilation. Some small, logical part of him informs him quietly that he’s having a panic attack.

“Sam! What the hell is going on?” 

Dean is in the bedroom doorway, backlit by the light from the main room. He closes the door quickly behind him and reaches for the light switch, and the sudden brightness makes Sam squint and put his hand to his eyes. The light in his head is spreading, and for just a second he feels as though it’s both inside and outside of him, wrapping around his body, coiling its sickly tendrils into his muscles.

“What the fuck did I just walk in on? Sam? Sammy..?”

Dean’s voice turns from outrage to concern in the space of a sentence, and then he’s moving. Sam’s knees hit the carpet just as Dean reaches him, and he can’t remember giving himself permission to fall. His brother’s hands are tight on his shoulders, his grip digging into muscle and bone as he keeps him upright.

“Sammy, what’s wrong?”

Sam’s words are gasped between breaths, and he grabs for Dean’s wrists. “It’s in my fucking head, Dean.”

“What is? What’s going on?”

Sam chokes, shaking his head. He can feel his pulse racing hard enough that it’s a pounding in his skull and all he wants is for this to stop, to be able to get a grip on himself, to fight back and throw off this madness. But the creeping horror of feeling something else inside him, something that shuts down his mind and his control is too much, too familiar.

“He’s having a panic attack.”

Lucifer’s voice is cool, his strides unhurried as he comes up behind Dean. Sam sees his brother throw a glare back over his shoulder, expression filled with disgust at the archangel’s intrusion, and Sam thinks _no, stop! He’s not the problem here!_ But he can’t get the words out and Dean isn’t paying him any attention.

“Move,” Lucifer orders dispassionately, and suddenly Dean is gone. Sam flinches, but his brother is now over by the window, and judging from his stiff-bodied look of outrage locked in place by some mojo of the archangel’s. As accustomed as he is to archangelic magic, as infuriated as he usually is by it, this time Sam cannot find it in himself to care. Dean’s fury, his indignation and his unerring ability to think the worst of everything Sam does are just too much for him to deal with right now. There’s a monster in his head, he can’t breathe and everything is just too fucking much to bear. 

Lucifer drops to one knee an arm’s length from Sam. Carefully, waiting on Sam’s permission, he lifts his hands, and when Sam looks to him in desperation he takes it as consent enough to lay them firmly down on his shoulders. 

“Sam, listen to me. There’s nothing in your head. The creature is not here, it’s still asleep in the mine. What you saw was a dream, a nightmare, nothing more.”

“I can feel it-”

“You can’t, Sam. It’s just your imagination. It’s a product of your fear, that’s all. There is no way that creature could be anywhere near you with me here. I would not permit it, Sam. I won’t allow it to harm you, and nor will I tolerate its presence anywhere near you or _inside_ you. You are _safe_ with me.”

There’s a resonance to Lucifer’s words, a whisper of absolute authority that cannot be ignored. Were he anything other than what he is then simply arguing a person down from the throes of panic would never work, but Lucifer - for all his flaws - has the voice of an archangel and with it comes all the power of his nature. Sam cannot help but listen, and as he meets the archangel’s eyes he feels the paralysis that’s locking up his muscles begin to ease, and the light that he’s feared starts to fade and become nothing more than an out of control thought that rattles slowly away to silence. 

Lucifer hums a satisfied note as Sam’s breathing begins to slow, and he lifts a hand to his cheek again, threading his fingers through the fall of Sam’s hair. Across the room Dean gives a strangled growl of outrage, and with barely a glance in his direction Lucifer shifts. There’s the sound of something like a cloth snapping in the wind, or the lazy flap of an angel’s wing, and suddenly Dean is gone. Sam makes a noise of horror and Lucifer brings his other hand up so that he’s cupping Sam’s face in his palms, turning his head back to him.

“Dean’s safe in his room where he’s going to stay tonight. Right now I want you to focus on me, Sam.”

Sam should be outraged, he should be furious on his brother’s behalf, but as he meets Lucifer’s calm gaze he finds himself relieved. Lucifer’s attention is like an iron bar that he can cling to, immovable and solid and absolutely unyielding in the face of horror. He can be terror incarnate, but he can also be a shield behind which Sam can shelter, and right now that’s exactly what he needs. 

“Dean,” he whispers.

“Is perfectly safe, I promise you.”

Sam swallows and closes his eyes. His pulse is beginning to slow and he can breathe freely again. Lucifer’s skin is cool on his cheeks and he can feel the callouses on his vessel’s palms - the hands of a man that’s worked a labourer’s trade. He’s as unshakeable as an old oak, and Sam leans into his strength.

“I dreamed,” he begins, then has to stop. His mind fills with the image of that milky, staring eye, the way it had felt beneath his fingers, putrescent and awful.

“Sam, focus.”

“Sorry, I-” he shakes his head, shivering at the memory.

“You need more sleep,” Lucifer finishes for him. “More _restful_ sleep.”

“I can’t,” Sam shakes his head. “There’s always-” he stops and swallows, not wanting to give voice to his thoughts. Lucifer lowers his chin in query and with patient, insistent strength refuses to allow Sam to turn his head away. “I always dream. There’s always something and it just- it doesn’t stop.”

Lucifer hums a single note, and Sam finds himself shivering. He doesn’t understand how it’s come this far, how his life has turned into one long, drawn-out slide into madness. When he was a boy he’d been able to bounce back so easily from life’s ups and downs, but these last few years, the up has never been as high as the low has dug him into. The strength he’d had, the certainties, they feel shaky and untrustworthy. The end-of-everything do-and-die conviction that had thrown him headfirst into the Cage and pulled the Devil in after him, it’s gone like so much smoke. He misses the time when he was strong. The absolute crystal clarity of it.

“Sam,” Lucifer breathes. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing any more.”

The confession slips out of him without a conscious decision. He feels Lucifer shift, feels the pads of the angel’s thumbs press gently along his cheeks. He doesn’t deserve pity for the stupidity he’s indulged in, but the idea of confessing to the creature that’s the actualisation of every rebellion in all Creation is strangely liberating.

“No matter what I do I’m damned. They come for me because they recognise what I am, because they know I’m a monster too.” 

“No, Sam.” Lucifer’s tone is firm, and for just a second his palms press in on Sam’s cheeks in a grip that should be terrifying. Sam looks into his eyes and finds a compassion there he hadn’t expected. “They come for you because they recognise what you are, and what you are is _powerful._ Not damned. Believe me, I know the damned and I know that you are not one of them.”

Under the uncompromising light of the bedroom's single bulb the simple words seem nonetheless like something profound, a piercing insight amidst the run-down decrepitude of human banality. Coming as they do from this creature so jarringly strange they strike Sam as frightening, almost stark in their clarity. For the first time in a long time the idea that the world contains such creatures as the one kneeling before him seems utterly bizarre to him.

“Are _you?_ ” Sam asks suddenly, and regrets it immediately.

Lucifer simply tilts his head at him, giving him the contemplative look so common to angels of every rank. 

“That,” he replies wryly. “Is a conversation for another time.”

Slowly the archangel lets his hands fall from Sam’s face, and the loss of contact makes Sam shiver all over again.

“I’m sorry, it was a stupid question.”

Lucifer sits back on his heels and regards him mildly. Outside the storm is still raging, the rain hammering against the windowpanes in staccato bursts. In the brightness of the bedroom light he looks curiously relaxed, at ease in a way that Castiel never quite managed. His complete lack of alarm is soothing and despite the embarrassment growing in Sam’s chest it’s hard to feel too bad when Lucifer apparently has no qualms about his erratic behaviour.

“What is it they say? There are no stupid questions, Sam.” 

Lucifer blinks slowly at him, like a cat content with its lot, and Sam closes his eyes briefly. 

“Then tell me why I feel like I’m going mad,” he whispers. “If I'm so goddamned powerful why am I never the one in control? Tell me why every monster in the world wants me at its side, like I’m some kind of fucking _figurehead._ Boy King Sam, Prince of Hell, right?”

“Wrong,” Lucifer answers. “Nothing of what you did, Sam, or what you were made to do, has made you unholy. You were always an instrument in my Father’s righteous plans, and as such there is _nothing_ you could ever do that would make you unholy. You were the lamb, Sam. We both were.”

Sam frowns, looking up at him suddenly, and as soon as he does the archangel’s expression shutters. Suddenly Lucifer leans forward and puts his palm to Sam’s cheek again, his eyes intent. “You were blessed. My brothers never understood that, all the way to the end and beyond. And neither did I.”  
  
“I don’t understand either,” Sam admits. He can feel his throat tightening with sudden emotion, and hates himself for it. Maybe Lucifer is simply feeding him the lines he thinks Sam wants to hear, and if so then he’s hitting squarely on target, and Sam doesn’t think he can resist manipulation like that. He’s been a broken sinner, and he’s suffered hell for it. He’s paid his dues, but the fact remains that there’s something in him that brings him back to this place in life, over and over. He has a poison built into him, a flaw put there by God Himself and it cannot be real for him to be anything but what he was made to be, even when it’s an archangel telling him so, _particularly_ when it’s this archangel.

“Ah, Sam,” Lucifer sighs. He lets his thumb trace over the rise of Sam’s cheekbone and shakes his head slowly. “How do you feel now?”

“Like a fucking idiot,” Sam replies honestly. To his surprise Lucifer laughs.

“We’ve all played the fool in this game, Sam. Some of us more thoroughly than others.”

Strangely, in that instant, Sam is absolutely sure that Lucifer isn’t talking about anyone but himself. He wants to ask more, to probe into that revelation, but in all honesty right now he simply doesn’t have the mental strength for it. He’s exhausted, cold, and embarrassed, and whatever capacity for emotion is left in him beyond that feels stretched taut, his resilience as questionable as the footing in water that’s turned unexpectedly deep.

It suddenly occurs to him that there is another thing that he’s allowed to slip. One more step down that treacherously slippery slope. Sam frowns, his fingers pressing into the denim of his jeans, and his mouth turns down into an unhappy grimace. He ought to have come back to this sooner.

“Did you really lock Dean in his room?” he asks softly. The guilt of allowing Lucifer to send him away is back and nibbling at his conscience, whispering that no matter how helpful it had been it’s marked him for the disloyal bastard of a brother he really is.

The archangel shrugs and lifts his hands in a ‘what can I say?’ gesture. “I had to get him away from you quickly, Sam. He really wasn’t helping.”

Sam frowns. “I don’t want him locked up. Let him out.”

Lucifer pauses, for just a second, barely long enough for Sam to wonder if he'll protest. Then with no apparent hint of reluctance he raises his right hand and snaps his fingers. “There. Done.”

Sam regards him through narrowed eyes. It would be so easy for the archangel to trick him right now, to say he’d done it and simply do nothing. “Lucifer-”

“I’ve done it, Sam,” Lucifer replies steadily. “He’s free, but…”

“But?”

“...he won’t be finding the door to these rooms any time soon.”

For a long moment Sam just looks at him. Lucifer raises his eyebrows and offers a cautious smile, one still tinted with the edge of sly mischief Sam recognises so well. It still throws him even now, that thread of irreverent humour that surfaces in the archangel and somehow always manages to take him completely by surprise. And more than that - these little bursts of archangelic mojo seem to be morphing into something more frequent, and it makes Sam wonder again exactly how much power Lucifer has managed to claw back. 

“I should tell him what’s going on.”

“Then text him,” Lucifer replies, with an illustrative wave of his fingers. “Right now he’s calling Bobby and yelling at his voicemail in that delightfully autocratic manner of his. Tell him you’re fine and that I’m here with you.”

“Yeah, he’s not going to take that from me,” Sam sighs. And nor will it reassure him, he adds mentally. “I should at least tell Bobby.”

“Bobby’s asleep in his truck,” Lucifer says. “Long day. Needed a break from all the youthful machismo in here.”

The shrug Lucifer gives him may be intended to portray innocence, but it just makes Sam close his eyes in despair. He’s never going to hear the end of this. Dean is going to go out of his mind, and he’s going to take it out on Sam for weeks to come. And of course Dean’s fears will be justified, Sam _is_ turning for help to the one creature none of them can afford to trust. It’s a selfish move, but then that too is nothing new, is it? Sam’s always been the selfish one out of the both of them. He grits his teeth in frustration and glares down at the faded carpet. Maybe sometimes he needs to feel like he’s the one making the choices.

“Stop caring, Sam.”

Lucifer’s expression is stern when he looks up, and full of perplexed disapproval. “Dean is your brother, not your keeper.”

For just a second, Sam hesitates. In the months between the return of his soul and now there’s been more than merely an undercurrent of unease between Dean and himself. The sheer, unstoppable threat of the Leviathans and then this damned Purgatory beast had pushed them down the same path in a way so inescapable that working together had been the only choice. They’d gone into it burning friction between them and only some days did it seem like they could move on. And now, buried beneath the relentless onslaught of imminent threat, those days have been coming fewer and further between.

Sam remembers all too well the look in his brother’s eye as he’d admitted to him he could still see Lucifer. The pain and the disappointment of that expression had seared through all of Sam’s defences and ignited every insecurity he’d ever had regarding his place in this family. He’d thought they could never recover themselves again after that, even after that first initial burst of anger and fear had passed, when in the cool hours of the morning things had settled into wary acceptance. 

It’s always the only choice though, in the end. Even through all the bullshit they’ve endured together, and apart. The shit they’ve done _to_ each other and _because_ of each other. He remembers suddenly, sharply and without warning, what it had felt like to jump back there at Stull, to bring an end to it all, and the panic in Dean’s eyes as the inevitability of everything had finally registered. _I did it for you,_ Sam wants to say. _Not for the world, not in the end._

Dean’s protectiveness can be cloying and restrictive, but Lucifer is right in a way he perhaps hadn’t intended. 

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “Dean’s my brother.”

Lucifer leans back as Sam pushes himself to his feet, only rising once Sam has already turned away. Running his fingers through his hair, Sam sits on the edge of the bed, thumbing on his phone to find five missed calls and three texts. He reads the increasingly angry messages through and breathes out long and slow through his nose. Ignoring the missed calls he taps out a brief message. _Sorry, I’m fine. I was just freaking out. I’m going to bed, see you in the morning. We’ll talk then. He’s still under control._ Then he toggles the phone to silent and puts it face down on the bedside table. 

_Dean is your brother, not your keeper._

“Come,” Lucifer says softly. “You need sleep.”

Sam presses his palms into his eyes, feeling the hollowed out sensation of exhaustion making his limbs heavy and sluggish. The ever-present buzz of headache is back behind his eyes, the one that tells him wakefulness cannot be managed on caffeine alone. But the anxiety is there too, the knowledge that sleep has its own dangers. The monsters that live in the waking world have long since followed Sam down into the dark, and not even the reality of surviving the Cage can put away the entirety of his fear. The hard lesson of his life has been that some experiences don’t make you stronger, they simply leave you damaged. He thinks that now as he turns the fear over in his mind, weighing up nightmares against the potential for a day without exhaustion. He’s managed it before, but with everything that’s happened recently Sam can feel his control stretched thin.

“I will watch over you, if you allow it,” Lucifer says quietly.

Sam goes entirely still. He can feel the archangel watching him, the weight of his caution making the air heavy. After everything Sam has said to him, after all the visions and the Cage dreams and the torture he still remembers, it makes no sense to want him to stay. And yet there’s a part of Sam that eases at the angel’s offer, some reaching, desperate sliver of need that’s so deeply embedded in his psyche it makes him wonder if it’s something the Devil tortured into him, or if it’s just a fundamental flaw of his nature.

“All right,” he replies.

And just like that it’s done. He thinks Lucifer is almost taken aback by his easy agreement, but the archangel covers the reaction with a slow blink, and while Sam changes out of his clothes into something suitable for sleeping Lucifer crosses to the window and looks out into the still raging storm. 

It’s easier than Sam imagines it would be to stretch out on the bed and pull the covers over his chest, with the archangel a vigilant shadow at the window, staring out across the parking lot. Sam lies on his back in the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, watching the lightning flicker and play. The storm has been raging on and off for what feels like hours now, but in truth can be no more than three. The evening seems to have stretched itself far beyond the time it should contain, and the nightmare hadn’t helped. 

He thinks again of the wet mucous feel of the creature in the mirror, the necrotic light that had felt like it was seeping into his skin, shuddering at the sense-memory. The wardrobe is a dark shadow in the corner, the mirror invisible in the gloom, but even so he can feel the weight of it hanging there. It’s like another person in the room with them, and despite Lucifer’s silent presence and his assurances to the contrary Sam can feel his skin beginning to crawl. He feels like a child, afraid of the dark.

For a split-second the room is lit by the flash of lightning. The mirror stands empty, reflecting nothing back but Sam’s face and the cheap motel furniture. He thinks of how it had felt as though the monster had seeped its way into his very head, worming its parasitic tendrils into his mind with no way for him to fight it. How would it have felt to have been subsumed alive by that depthless, staring eye? How would it have compared to hell? To the Cage? What would the torture of blade and hook be compared to the feeling of rotting away while still alive?

“Sam.”

Almost to his own surprise, Sam doesn’t jump. Lucifer’s voice is soft in the gloom, and he opens his eyes to find the angel silhouetted in the muted glow of the streetlights through the drapes. Backlit as he is he cannot see the angel’s expression. It’s only because the rain has at some point eased a little that he even hears him sigh.

“I can hear you thinking, Sam.”

Perhaps he ought to be offended by that. It’s an invasion of privacy that ranks up there with possession as far as Sam’s concerned, but there’s almost no way for him to stop it from happening. At least Castiel had never admitted to them such a thing existed. A spike of self-conscious shame pricks at him and it’s only his absolute exhaustion that stops him from flinching.

“I can’t help it,” he admits. “I feel like it’s still in my head. No matter what I do I can still feel its... I don’t know, its _flesh_ when I touched it. It felt rotten, like a disease. Like it jumped inside me through my skin. I keep feeling like if I look at the mirror it’ll be there looking back at me. I know, it’s crazy.”

For maybe half a minute they regard one another in the darkness, and it’s only the depth of the shadows that allows Sam to do it without flinching. The silence stretches until he starts to feel foolish, and then Lucifer shifts, letting his folded arms fall back to his sides. Silently he pads across the room, around the end of the bed until he’s moving up along the other side. Sam feels the mattress dip as Lucifer settles next to him, and surprised, he shifts sideways to give him more room. The bedframe creaks in complaint as Lucifer leans back to rest against the headboard.

Sam lies still, not knowing what to do. The archangel is between him and the mirror now, and he wonders if that had been a deliberate move - he thinks perhaps it was. In the darkness he can’t hear Lucifer breathing. Of course the archangel has no need of breath or even a pulse, but they’re still things he lets his vessel mimic, if only to put people at ease. To put _Sam_ at ease, he amends mentally. Lucifer cares very little for the opinions of anyone else.

It’s beyond strange to lie there in the dark, ostensibly watched over by one of the most powerful angels in existence. It’s the kind of thing he might have believed in as a child, couched in sugar-coated, starry-eyed imagery full of white robes and fluffy clouds. Nothing like this lean and vicious entity who sits so calmly in jeans and a faded shirt, with the rage of eons simmering and hidden below his cool exterior. It makes Sam wonder again, latest in a long line of such times, how they’ve come to this. 

As unbelievable as it now feels, there had been a time before the visions, a time before everything in his life had revolved around what happened down in the Cage. Long before his impromptu visit to his own personal corner of hell, there'd already been demons and blood and torture. Death and plague and four horsemen who walked right out of legend and into reality, pulled there by a monster with a burning crown who’d been the death of more than hope. Who has killed people that meant things to Sam. 

“Why did you do it?” he asks quietly.

For a long moment Lucifer doesn’t reply. Sam can feel him thinking in the darkness, even though he can’t see his face. There’s a ponderous weight to the silence that hangs between them. 

“You’ll need to be a little more specific than that, Sam,” the archangel replies eventually.

But Sam doesn’t really know how to articulate what he’s asking. He knows full well from his shared time with Lucifer in the run-up to Stull the sheer, maniacal rage that had powered the archangel in those days. It had burnt brighter than any sun, and colder than any arctic wind. Pure, unadulterated pain and hatred, the kind of poison that takes the breath away with its intensity. All of it focussed squarely on Michael. 

As much as Lucifer had spat and raged and poured bile on humanity, when things didn’t go his way he’d done the same to his demons, and no matter what he’d said about restoring the planet to its original pristine beauty he’d forgotten that Sam had been right there in his head too, listening to his thoughts go by. He may have claimed he wanted the world restored to paradise once more, but Sam had known damned well back then, that even had Lucifer won it would never have been enough. 

“You stopped,” he says, and what he means is that there at the end he’d felt the Devil pause. 

When Sam had fought his way back to the forefront in that final, bloody fistfight, riding the swell of memory and love for his brother, it hadn’t been a rush of strength that had allowed him to pull Lucifer away. It had been because Lucifer had hesitated. Sam can still remember the way the archangel had teetered on the edge, like a tightrope walker straining for balance, and when Sam had pushed him he hadn’t fought back. With a crystal clarity so cold he can almost feel it in his veins Sam recalls that, of the two of them, Sam hadn’t been the one to reach out and grab for Michael in those last few seconds, and he wonders if Lucifer knows he remembers that.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Sam,” Lucifer says slowly, and Sam realises that he really isn’t.

He smiles into the darkness, and if Lucifer sees it and doesn’t understand then Sam doesn’t feel the need to explain. Instead he closes his eyes and lets the archangel’s presence keep the lesser monsters at bay, just for a little while. 

  
  


*

  
  


The night passes in restless drifting. Sam tosses uncomfortably beneath the thin blanket and even with Lucifer at his side his dreams are haunted by something pale that stalks him from the corner of his eye. He hurries away through a house he doesn’t recognise, always looking for a door to the outside and finding only endless, darkened rooms full of faded furniture from some forgotten era. Sometimes he’s in a forest and a white, skeletal dog stands on the path before him staring him down, and maybe that dream’s easier because at least there he can see what the monster is.

He doesn’t know at what point the dreams change, but something shifts and by the time Sam realises it he’s lying back looking up at a ceiling made of light so beautiful that even in the dream it takes his breath away. Something inside him recognises this place, from the stained glass reach of colour and light that stretches far above him, to the resonant hum that fills the air and soothes the soul. It spreads a calm through his body that leaves him floating, lazily attempting to make sense of the complex interplay of colours he knows don't really exist.

Something about this place is like coming home, and as he lies there Sam puzzles over that sense of familiarity. In the way of dreams he knows that Lucifer is with him. The archangel is at his back, slow and languid, and when the angel lowers his head, lifting his hand, the touch of his fingers is cool against Sam's forehead. The rage that burns in him is quiescent, but the light of him is the same - white like nothing on Earth, like the type of crystalline perfection that Sam has no name for. 

“You’ve changed,” Sam tells him.

He feels the archangel tilt his head in query, an angelic trope even in dreams, and so familiar that it makes Sam laugh. He lets the light fill him up, and allows that pure cold to permeate his very soul, loosing the tension that’s coiled in him for as long as he can remember. Drifting, he returns his attention to the play of colours above, and if Lucifer asks him a question then Sam doesn’t hear it. Gently he lets the world slide away, and take with it all the memories he has of everything, until there’s nothing left but peace and a light so pure it can be nothing but divine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for just the one chapter, it was that or trying to get four ready at once, and it's been a week, so... At least that means 3 over the weekend, right? Catch you all then, when it's finally all about trapping the Beast. :]


	18. Bait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every mousetrap needs its cheese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of the three weekend chapters - these feel like a set to me, and I feel like they couldn't be posted apart from each other without weird and unpleasant cliffhangers.

A weak sunlight is filtering in through the motel window when Sam opens his eyes. The room is cold and from the chill in his feet it’s this that’s woken him more than anything else. Blinking he rolls over onto his back, and then pushes himself sharply upright. There’s no sign of Lucifer - the edge of the bed is empty and he is once more alone. 

When he makes his way out into the main room he finds the archangel at the kitchenette table, his spell paperwork spread out before him. Lucifer looks up and meets Sam’s eyes with an amusement that seems out of place, and Sam blinks quizzically at him, relieved despite himself to find the angel hasn’t gone far.

“I hope you’re ready for this,” Lucifer drawls and nods lazily towards the door that opens out onto the parking lot. Sam has time enough to frown, and then the door bursts open and Dean is standing in the doorway. He looks from Sam to Lucifer and the relief that had lit his eyes at the sight of his brother melts instantly into fury when he catches the smirk on the archangel’s face.

“You motherfucker,” he snarls.

“Dean!” Sam snaps.

“Now, now, Dean. I didn’t hurt you.” Lucifer shrugs and offers a disingenuous smile. “Except maybe your pride, but you have plenty of that to go round, don’t you?”

Dean’s face is dark with rage. “I am going to rip your wings off and-”

_“Enough!”_

Sam’s shout echoes off the walls, loud enough that it takes even him by surprise and makes both the angel and his brother turn to him in shock. At least it has the effect of silencing whatever comeback Dean had primed. 

“Sam,” Dean starts, then he takes two fast, angry steps towards his brother, and the moment he begins to move Lucifer is on his feet, eyes narrowing. Sam doesn’t see the angel cross the room, but suddenly he’s there between them, hands deep in his pockets and posture relaxed, but an aura of threat to him so heavy it’s a weight on the air. Dean pulls up short, hand going to the gun he has holstered under his shirt and Sam draws a startled breath in.

“Lucifer,” he says carefully.

There’s a long, tense moment in which Dean stares the archangel down and Lucifer watches him do it, unconcern plain on his features but nothing short of distilled threat in his cold blue eyes.

“Lucifer,” Sam says again. “It’s fine. Go wait outside, I need to talk to my brother.”

With just the smallest shift of his head to look back over his shoulder, the archangel nods, and as suddenly as he’d appeared between them he’s gone again. The brothers are left staring at one another in the silence he leaves behind, and it’s several long seconds before either of them relax. Finally Dean’s hand falls from his gun, and he shakes his head, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“What the hell, Sam?”

Sam lets a slow breath escape and then steels himself to meet what’s coming. “I’m fine, Dean.”

“You didn’t look fine last night. You looked like you were having a goddamned breakdown.”

Sam looks away, flicking his gaze across Lucifer’s piled up notes. He doesn’t know how to answer his brother, because whatever he says it’s going to be the wrong thing. But Dean’s not done yet.

“And what the fuck is with that archangel? You set him to act as your guard dog now? He gonna bite me, Sammy?”

“Dean…”

“Don’t _‘Dean’_ me, Sam. That shit he pulled last night was not okay. You know I spent six hours walking up and down outside trying to find the goddamned door to get back in and check he wasn’t- fuck! And I have no idea where Bobby is, he didn’t come back last night either. And what the hell were you doing during all this?”

Sam closes his eyes and tries to settle his breathing again. _Don’t let him rile you up_ , he thinks. _Either of them. Don’t let either of them get to you._ “I was sleeping, actually. And Bobby’s fine. He was asleep in his truck last night, as far as I know.”

“He was- you were what? Sleeping? What the hell, Sam?”

_You knew this was going to happen,_ Sam tells himself. _You knew it wasn’t fair and you still let him do it._ “Bobby left to get some space, I guess he slept in his truck last night. He does that sometimes, you know that.”

Dean has gone dangerously quiet, and Sam opens his eyes to find his brother staring at him. There’s anger in Dean’s eyes, deep as the ocean, and worse - a hurt even deeper than that. Sam feels his chest tighten with guilt, and then with a sudden flash of anger. There’d been a reason he’d let Lucifer send Dean away and this guilt-trip, this bull-headed tirade right here is exactly why. 

“Sam, he could have been doing anything to you. I was going out of my goddamned mind.”

Dean’s voice is treading the knife edge of control, and Sam can hear the note in it that says his brother’s throat is tight with fear and aching with remembered pain. Sam’s not the only one that’s seen first-hand what Hell’s original demon is capable of, and that right there is entirely the problem. This is what they always come back to, the pair of them: this never ending cycle of fear that feeds off their shared need, the co-dependence they’ve built up over all these twisted bastard years. 

“He wasn’t doing anything to me,” Sam says softly. “He helped me calm down then I slept, that’s all. I texted you.”

“Oh great, yeah. I got your text.” Dean shrugs and nods as though this all makes sense, then slices his hand through the air in anger. “And that was it, was it? I was supposed to just stand back and take that as proof he hadn’t gone all Alex DeLarge on your ass?”

“Dean, come on!” Sam snaps, aghast. 

“You know, I don’t like what I saw when I walked in on you two, and it sure as hell didn’t make me trust him any better, Sam!”

For just a single second Sam considers punching his brother right there and then. The insinuation hits too close to home for him, stirring up memories that Sam doesn’t ever need to think of again, even if they’re Cage dreams and not reality. They’re still a nightmare that poisons every part of him and haunts his dreams. For Dean to play on those fears sends a wash of cold horror and then white-hot rage through him. 

“This is why I don’t tell you anything,” he grates out through clenched teeth.

Dean leans back as though this is the revelation he’d been waiting for. The admission that something’s going on, that Sam is once more lying to him. “He’s getting in your head, Sammy.”

“He’s been in my goddamned head the whole time, Dean!” Sam’s shout echoes in the room, but his brother doesn’t back down. “I can’t get him out, and the only thing I can do is work with it as best I can! You think I _want_ this?”

Sam’s voice cracks on the last few words and he snarls to cover the slip. Dean nods his head slowly.

“I think you need to remember that as soon as this is done, he goes back where he came from.”

The words make Sam draw up short, and he gives a sharp, confused shake of his head. “What exactly are you saying, Dean?”

“I’m saying don’t make the mistake of trusting him just because you’ve got him on a leash. Tigers and tails, Sam. Don’t let him wrap that leash round your neck and choke you with it.”

They stare at each other in tense silence, Sam still biting down on his anger, Dean with the cool-eyed fury that makes Sam’s blood boil. Perhaps Sam might have taken the argument further, tossed a few accusations of his own onto the fire, but it’s at that point the door opens again. Bobby comes in, looks up and reads the mood in the room, then pauses on the threshold with a grimace. 

“Either of you boys care to tell me why that damned archangel is stood out in the middle of the parking lot?”

“Sam and I were having a chat, Bobby,” Dean says. “How you doing, man? You okay?”

Bobby gives him a scowl that’s part irritation, part confusion. “I’m fine, y’idjit. Look, one of you better go get him in because he’s scaring the locals.”

“What?” Sam asks, startled. “How?”

“By existing,” Bobby growls, and closes the door behind him. “And what’s with all the damned missed calls on my phone?”

Dean shakes his head, and with one last, meaningful look at Sam turns his attention to the map still rolled out on the table. Sam stares at his brother’s shoulders for a long second, thinking of all the things he could say to get his brother to back the hell off. In the end he says none of them, and instead turns sharply on his heel and goes to fetch his archangel.

  
  


*

  
  


“We’ll need bait.”

Dean snorts and looks around, holding his hands out wide. “Well then, asshole. I volunteer you.”

Lucifer’s answering head tilt is all carefully contained irritation, but his smile is razor-edged. “Dean, Dean... We could do that, if you want every Leviathan in the state down on us.”

“Didn’t look like you had too much trouble with those six back at the cabin,” Dean replies flatly. 

Lucifer’s eyes narrow and he stares at Dean over folded arms. “I’m glad to hear you have the appropriate level of respect for my abilities, Dean. But you’re missing the wider implications here. You bring every Leviathan in a state-wide radius to this place, that old eldritch sleeping beauty is going to be first in line for the buffet. So we’ll be dealing with either a plague of Leviathans, which yes, I could burn through, given enough time, _or_ more likely, we’ll have a monster glutted on the fat of the harvest crop burning up everything in sight while it gorges. And believe me, Dean, once it starts chowing down it’s not going to pause to separate out the wheat from the chaff, it’s going to eat everything in sight. Leviathans, people, you and your old man friend...anything it can see.”

Dean shakes his head and puts his fists to the table, leaning over the map and glaring at the archangel. “Then you got a better plan?”

“Listen,” Sam interrupts, eyes closed and the fingers of one hand raised. The tension from earlier had already been enough to give him a headache and the continued bickering is in no way helping. “Lucifer, you said it goes looking for concentrations of food, so Leviathans, right? Why don’t we just...get a _few_ Leviathans together, put them in a, I don’t know, a cage or something, and throw a mirror in with them?”

“Actually, Sam,” Lucifer smiles, and the expression on his face is self-satisfied and full of the potential for trouble. “That’s more or less exactly what we’re going to do.”

Which is how Sam finds himself learning, albeit not for the first time in his life, the old High Magic from one of the first beings in all Creation. While Bobby and Dean drive out in search of a suitable location to carry out the final spell, Sam sits with Lucifer in the motel kitchenette and copies the sigils the angel draws on the backs of crumpled pieces of paper. Lucifer sits next to him, so close that his arm brushes Sam’s with every stroke of his pen, until Sam, driven to distraction, gets up and moves away.

“Concentrate, Sam,” the archangel says to him. “If you don’t get these sigils exactly right you’re going to have a very angry Leviathan ready to make you its next meal.” 

“You’d save me,” Sam says bluntly, and for that Lucifer has no answer but a single slow nod of concession. 

It’s late evening by the time Bobby and Dean return and Sam is sitting cross-legged on the sofa eating take-out noodles and trying to work out how well he can track the archangel through solid walls. It’s a strange feeling, like a pull that’s somewhere between magnetism and swinging a lead ball around on the end of a chain. Fine until it comes time to stop, then it’s either a case of be quick on your feet or just let go and Sam’s not sure which option appeals the least.

“Where is he?” are Dean’s first words when he piles in the door, Bobby behind him, and Sam has to bite down on an angry retort. 

“He’s out looking to see if there’s any Leviathans round here we can lure in,” he replies shortly. It’s not entirely inaccurate, but right now Sam can feel the archangel’s presence somewhere out in the parking lot, probably along the far side where there’s a thin line of trees that screen it from the open meadow beyond. He seems drawn to plants, Sam’s noticed, as though using them as some kind of spiritual nosegay against the encroachment of humanity. 

Dean makes a disgruntled sound and Bobby slings his backpack down on the table. 

“We got somewhere to do the spell,” the old hunter says. “Out along 26 a ways, some kind of old industrial estate. Used to be a distillery from the look of it, but closed up now. Plenty of space to do a ritual and fifty miles from anyone that’d care.”

“No town?” Sam asks, pushing himself to his feet. He nods in understanding at the grim look that passes between his brother and Bobby. Another casualty of the failed Apocalypse. “Right.”

“So, what about these Leviathans?” Dean asks, and in his tone there’s a note that Sam recognises as a truce offered. Nodding, he half-shrugs. He’ll accept the gesture - for now.

“I’ll call him in.”

They take Route 26 north and then west, driving in convoy across moon-silvered plains that stretch out in all directions. It’s almost an hour before they reach their destination, the land around them starting to fold itself up into the first peaks of a low span of hills. They cruise slowly through a burned out town and on past its dead-eyed buildings to the industrial estate a few miles down the road. The place is abandoned, the surrounding chain link fence battered and torn in sections by something that had hit with unbelievable force and not even paused to survey the damage. 

Aborted or not, there’d been a lot of places that had suffered in the run up to the Apocalypse, and only two brothers with limited time to spare. Sam’s face is grim as he cruises Bobby’s truck up through the broken gates of the check-point at the entrance, but Lucifer’s gaze is keen as he looks around. This far from town amongst the wreckage of civilisation he seems almost cheerful. When they pull up and get out, Sam slams the truck door behind himself with more force than the action warrants.

“Good enough?” Dean asks gruffly. He has a shotgun in one hand and a pair of powerful torches in the other, one of which he passes off to Sam. Lucifer is pacing the wide stretch of concrete that would once have been the staff parking lot, looking around at the darkened warehouses that make up the complex. He has the air of a panther pacing the boundaries of a new cage. Sam glances at him grimly, then nods. 

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine. What’s it like inside?”

The site is made up of abandoned warehouses, hastily secured with chain and padlock, none of which are proof against the determined application of crowbars or the casual strength of an archangel. Inside they’re dusty and silent, lacking power and filled with strange machinery that glints dully metallic in the light of their torches. With the ease of long practice they find space suitable for their needs: somewhere to lay down the sigils that will trap the Leviathans in place, and a section with enough clear space that the protective wards can be drawn for Lucifer’s great binding spell. The fate of the world once more playing itself out in dusty, abandoned human mundanity. 

While Bobby and Dean set up a perimeter outside, Sam follows Lucifer through the cool darkness of the warehouses, feeling the same thrill that comes before every confrontation with a monster. In the past it's been vampires and demons, werewolves and wraiths, and in the worst times, archangels. Now it's something else entirely, something with no name in the lore books, and Sam finds that the thrill has gone sour, making his muscles tense and his mouth pull down in a frown. For his part the archangel seems to be gripped by an odd cheer, as though this is all an afternoon's light entertainment for him, and not the crux of the reason for his being here in the first place. Sam follows him in grim silence, made irritable by how unnerving he finds the angel's mood.

In a rare stroke of luck they find tins of paint in a storage room, and these Lucifer hefts with satisfaction, levering off the lids with the tip of his thumb to peer inside. 

“These will do nicely,” he declares.

Sam frowns, thinking of the sigils they need to draw, and how industrial-sized tins of cheap paint have never cut it in the past. “Don’t we need blood?”

Lucifer, arms already full of unwieldy cans, sniffs and shrugs as he passes by. “Not everything is about blood, Sam,” he declares archly. 

It’s Sam’s turn to snort as he watches the archangel retreat back into the gloom of the main warehouse. 

“Usually is in my experience.”

Ten minutes later with twenty pots of paint set out on the warehouse floor and enough candles to light a small church dotted around them, Sam watches as Lucifer draws the tip of his blade across his palm, tilting his hand until a slow trickle of blood patters down into the first pot. He folds his arms, watching as the angel works, the scent of copper suddenly sharp on the air. 

“I said it would need blood,” he complains, albeit glad that for once he’s not being asked to contribute.

“Perhaps just a little,” Lucifer murmurs, his smile sly. “Now, mix these up as I go.”

Although he’s done far worse things in his time, the peculiar mingled scent of paint and blood strikes Sam as particularly unpleasant. He wrinkles his nose up and thinks instead of the wards they’ll be painting to hold the Leviathans captive. These are the kind of wards that they could have used knowing about weeks back, the sort of thing that could really make a difference if they were to pass them around to other hunters. Even as he stirs the gloopy, off-white mixture he knows that it won’t be possible. Everything he’s learned over the years from all his sources - books, Cas, Ruby - all of it tells him that these sigils are something entirely personal to their creator. 

As Lucifer selects a paintbrush from the dusty pile, shaking it out with a disapproving frown, Sam finishes up the last of the tins and then sits back on his heels to watch the archangel work. With efficient, flowing strokes of the brush, Lucifer begins to lay out the complex circles of wards that will let them keep the Leviathans bound. His script is elegant and intricate, almost baroque in places, and Sam recognises it well. It’s how he knows this will never work in the hands of anyone else.

“These wards, they only work if you paint them?” he hazards gloomily.

Lucifer casts a glance back over his shoulder, pausing only momentarily. “What makes you say that?”

Pushing himself to his feet, Sam crosses over to crouch down next to him. Lucifer pauses, elbow resting on his knee, gaze intent on Sam’s face.

“These,” Sam says, pointing out a set of sigils. “This here. The way they...reference themselves. I mean they’re recursive. And they point at you, I mean, they _reference_ you. Like you’re, ah, casting this in your own name…?”

“Very good,” Lucifer says softly. 

“That’s why it needs your blood in the paint, a little bit at least. Otherwise it- the link between you and the ward wouldn’t be as strong.”

Lucifer blinks at him slowly and from his expression Sam knows there’s more. He falters on the brink of understanding, feeling the edges of the concept beginning to glint in the light but struggling to see the whole of it at once. He shakes his head and Lucifer draws in a breath.

“In Heaven,” the angel murmurs, “I wouldn’t need the blood _or_ the sigils.”

Sam looks down at the glistening wards, his eyes moving along the complex loop and weave of them. Some of the Enochian he recognises, and some of it resonates in a way he’s not sure of, like some barely remembered dream and he thinks it must be some shared memory from before Stull, but after he’d said yes. 

“This section will hold them in place,” he says, pointing to an isolated curve of intricate script. “And this line...it obscures them?”

“Precisely. And when we’re ready we smudge that out and…” Lucifer spreads his fingers in an expansive gesture. “Voila! One baited trap.” 

There’s a metallic screech of hinges as the outer door opens and Dean pokes his head in. He scowls to see the pair of them kneeling so close, or at least that’s how Sam reads his expression, but for once he makes no comment.

“Generator’s hooked up,” Dean says curtly, then lifts his hands. “Let there be light!”

Sam blinks as the pair of portable floodlights slung over the rafters kick in, brightening the soft glow of the candles to something harsh and electric bright. The warehouse is big enough that even with both of them switched on only the very centre of the room is lit, the outskirts fading to shadows amidst the abandoned machinery. 

“Is that it?” Dean asks, pointing with his chin at the beginnings of the wards.

“It’s for the Leviathans,” Sam says before Lucifer can start another verbal sparring match. He watches the tension in his brother’s shoulders as Dean gives a cursory tug on the floodlights' power cables, checking that they’re secure. And then, before he can ask, “They’re like demon traps. Once they’re in, they’re not getting out.”

“Useful,” Dean grunts in response, then turns and folds his arms. “Could have done with those sooner. What about the Purgatory monster? If it’s still sleeping, will it even turn up?”

Lucifer puts his head on one side, paintbrush bobbing idly between his fingers. He appears to be considering Dean with amusement, and Sam can feel himself tensing for the incoming barb. 

“Oh yes,” the angel says, low and certain. “As soon as it smells the bacon frying, it’ll be here.”

Sam’s not sure he shares Lucifer’s anticipation, the angel clearly spoiling for a rematch with the beast. There’s something in his tone that sounds a lot like a grudge, or a need to prove a point that Sam doesn’t understand or particularly like the sound of. 

“So then, where are these Leviathans going to be coming from?” Dean is squinting at the wards Lucifer has painted, his mouth twisted unhappily. He doesn’t like magic that’s not been tested and proven true, but there’s more to his grimace than that. Sam watches him blink and then look away, as though looking at the sigils unnerves him. 

“Ah,” Lucifer says, smug smile once more curling his lips. “Leave them to me. I’ll make sure we have our bait.”

“You better,” Dean replies, but his words lack the usual bite of suspicion. Sam wonders if he’s finally convinced of the archangel’s intentions, or, more likely already expecting this to fail.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, Sam and I still have work to do,” Lucifer says smoothly. “Sam? It may need my blood, but it doesn’t mean you can’t help scratch all this out like we practiced.”

Nodding, Sam casts around for another paint brush, and joins the archangel at his work.

  
  


*

  
  


The backroads of Boise are quiet and still when the streetlamp on the corner flickers once, then twice, before settling back to its diffuse golden glow. The man hauling trash bags out to the dumpster pauses for a second to look up, some preternatural sense telling him that something, other than himself, isn’t quite right out here tonight. Amidst the silence of the neighbourhood the only sounds are the faint hum of the overhead power cables and the distant barking of a dog. 

The back yard of the butcher’s is a bland square of dust and age-cracked concrete, hidden on two sides by tall panel fences and lit only by the second-hand glow of the streetlamp. From his place by the rear exit of the store, the man looks around and then slowly lifts the lid of the dumpster to toss his trash sack inside. It hits with a tinkle of broken glass that shatters the otherwise peaceful quiet of the night. When he turns to go back inside, there’s a figure standing in the middle of the yard watching him.

From where he’s standing Sam doesn’t hear what Lucifer says to the Leviathan. What he sees is the way the thing reacts. Either it’s smarter or more perceptive than the ones they’d met back at the cabin, or it’s just more cowardly than most, because the first thing it does is try to run. Lucifer is on it in an instant, his forearm wrapped tight around the creature’s neck, the tip of his angel blade pressed into its cheek. Even from so far away the hunter can see the glint of the archangel’s smile, or perhaps he simply senses it. Either way the Leviathan goes very still.

Forearm still locked in that unbreakable chokehold, Lucifer looks up and straight at Sam waiting across the road, and in the dark his eyes gleam.

  
  


*  
  


In a rare fit of shared hesitancy, no-one had been able to bring themselves to ask exactly how it was the archangel intended for them to obtain the required Leviathans. Despite Lucifer’s apparent ability to smite the things with whatever form of extra-special mojo it is that powers an archangel, even a fallen one, there remains the problem of getting hold of them without being discovered or letting them sound some kind of monster panic alarm. Dean, personally, had been entertaining outrageous visions of creeping up and mugging the damned things in dark alleys, and he almost chokes when it turns out that’s more or less exactly what the archangel intends to do. 

In the end Dean had been entirely unsurprised when Lucifer had taken Sam off with him to hunt, and the frustration grinding in his chest has been made no better by Bobby’s phlegmatic acceptance of the matter. It feels to Dean a lot like the old hunter has already resigned himself to Sam getting screwed over again by the Devil, and it takes an almost inhuman effort of will on Dean’s part not to call him out on it.

It’s been a long time since Dean Winchester has worried about his brother like this. It seems like a strange thing to say in light of the shitshow their lives have been, but even a year spent thinking his brother dead had at least had the certainty of a done deed. This whole waiting for Lucifer to tip his hand deal is slowly driving him insane. Sam may not be willing to admit it, but Dean knows damned well his brother is fully aware the archangel has some trick he’s hiding, some plan he’s building up to that no-one this side of Creation is going to like. Even if Sam denies it, Dean knows what he saw in the motel room last night, and just the memory of it is enough to send a twisting wave of dread through him. The Devil is a seducer in every sense of the word, and Dean knows all too well how flesh can be made to think it wants something it should never have. After all, his brother isn’t the only one who has memories of the corrupting ways of hell. 

Like an old enemy come back to taunt him, or a poison buried in his bones, there is a deep and primal fear building in Dean that he’s losing his brother all over again. As far as he’s concerned that damned archangel is toxic; everything he touches turns to ruin and death, no matter what pretentious crap he comes out with to justify his assholery. But it’s exactly the kind of sob story his brother buys into, because Sam is a good person that just wants to help, someone that thinks he can change things, change _people_. Saving the Devil from damnation is exactly the kind of doomed bullcrap Sam would jump for, and Dean knows it with a sinking certainty. Why the hell Sam can’t just find some nice normal boy or girl and get it out of his system he’ll never know. Why does it always have to be a goddamned monster?

The intrusive memory of Lucifer’s hands around his brother’s face, too close, too intimate, too fucking presumptuous, makes Dean’s skin crawl, and he’s furious all over again. The fact that Sam had let the angel take him away out of reach, had locked Dean out from getting to him, makes Dean at once both enraged and coldly terrified. It had been a stupid thing to do, tactically unsound in every way, and christ their dad would have thrashed the pair of them for it had he still been alive to hear about it. Would have thrashed Dean at any rate for letting such a powerful threat get its foot so firmly in the door, for letting it get so close to Sam. Dean shakes his head, as disgusted with himself as he is with his brother. Hell, even if he had been pissing Sam off by stepping in, he’d just been trying to protect him. It’s his job, Sam’s his brother for christ’s sake!

With an intensity that surprises him, it hurts Dean that Sam won’t tell him anything about what's really going on in his head. Sure, he gets that a man needs to have his boundaries, but the thing that Sam never seems to see is that neither of them can do this alone. Neither of them _have_ to. They're brothers and they have each other, no matter how cloying and distasteful Sam seems to find that concept. And sure, Dean's trying to keep a lid on it, but he’s seen Lucifer work before, and he’s terrified of that link between them - which, by the by, he entirely believes in, even if Sam won’t credit him with that level of intelligence - he's terrified that link is as much about Lucifer being able to control Sam as it is the other way round. Worse, he's not sure his brother even realises it.

There’s a tight, wounded knot in Dean’s chest that he cannot, does not want to acknowledge. But every time he thinks of Sam’s reluctance to speak to him about anything that’s going on he feels it again, blind-sided by the potency of it. Dean trusts his brother, but he trusts that he _knows_ him too, and that he can predict him, and Dean knows all too well just how willing to forgive the unforgivable Sam can be. How naïve he can be, even after everything they’ve been through.

When Lucifer and Sam reappear in the warehouse in a snap of wings and displaced air, Dean almost jumps out of his skin. Even expecting them, after years of being primed to react with caution to the sound of wings, it’s not easy to resist the urge to aim his shotgun in their direction. It’s not like Cas’s appearances. Cas’s wings never made a sound so sibilant and layered and full of impending menace as Lucifer’s. 

Dean looks to his brother first, finding Sam’s expression tight and wary. Only then does he look at the man gripped securely in the archangel’s arms. Lucifer has the razor sliver point of his blade pressed against the man’s cheek, his head unwisely close to a creature that can split its whole skull in half to make room for the entirety of its bite. If the guy even is a Leviathan that is.

The question is answered when Lucifer shoves the man forwards and into the Leviathan trap painted on the warehouse floor. The effect is immediate and unsettling. The creature’s face warps from human to monster in a split-second, twisting into a maw of needle teeth and rippling, fleshy tongue. Even knowing what the things look like under their stolen skins, all three humans take a step backwards, disgusted by the sight. Only Lucifer stands unconcerned and alone at the edge of the trap.

Both Bobby and Dean had been ready with the borax shells in the event of something going wrong, but it’s apparent at once that neither of them need have bothered. The Leviathan tries to step outside the edges of the sigil beneath its feet and immediately jerks stiff with a strangled hiss, as though it’s touched an invisible shock field in the air. Snarling, it turns a tight circle, at the same time trying somehow not to put its back to the archangel watching it in rapt silence. 

“That’s pretty damned good,” Dean mutters, impressed despite himself. Months of running scared from these damned things could have been cut short if they'd had access to this type of magic. “You get him to teach you that trick, Sammy?”

Except the moment he asks he knows he doesn’t want the answer to be yes. The sigils aren’t like any Enochian Dean’s seen before, and he’s seen plenty in his time. There’s a strangeness to them that hurts the eyes and makes him see colours that aren’t there if he stares at them for too long. His brother shakes his head, the corners of his mouth turning down in an expression of discomfort that Dean can’t read. But there’s a reassuring amount of disapproval in that look and it settles him some to know that Sam has recognised a bad thing for what it is. Seems they agree on that much.

“There now,” Lucifer croons. “All secure and locked up tight. No getting in or out, safe as houses.”

It takes Dean a moment to realise that the archangel isn’t talking to them, but to the Leviathan cowering awkwardly in the trap. There’s something unpleasant in the angel’s voice, a mocking, predatory note that Dean’s not heard from him before, not quite in this way, and it immediately puts him on edge. Next to him Sam is frowning.

The words the creature gibbers in response sound a little like Enochian and at the same time nothing at all like the angels’ ancient language. For all the eerie weirdness of its voice it’s clear the thing is afraid. It’s an interesting experience to see a terrified Leviathan, and both brothers watch in grim fascination as it squirms beneath the archangel’s attention. 

“Hush,” Lucifer says softly, and gently taps his fingertips to the air at edge of the sigil’s warding perimeter, making the Leviathan recoil. It flinches upright as it hits the far side of the sigil’s zone, going stiff in pain, and the archangel laughs under his breath. Over his shoulder he says, “It’ll be secure in there until I come back. Now, if you don’t mind I believe I have nine more traps to fill. Stay here, Sam, and keep an eye on this one for me. If it says anything to you, shoot it. Or just shoot it, whatever you feel like. You won’t kill it.”

There’s an unreadable expression on Sam’s face at the words, but Dean knows him well enough to sense the discomfort in him at Lucifer’s particular brand of casual cruelty. Even if the thing is a Leviathan there are lines that neither of them will willingly cross. At least, there should be.

“Don’t take long,” Dean hears his brother say quietly, and the archangel turns with a sober nod. Then he’s gone in a flicker of unseen wings, leaving the humans to stare at one another in an uncomfortable silence broken only by the whimpering of the caged Leviathan.


	19. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An uneasy truce. Lucifer's desperation. It's time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2nd of the weekend chapters.

Sam presses his knuckles into eyes and takes a long, tired breath. There’d been a time once, somewhere back around Stanford maybe, that staying up all night would have been child’s play. Nothing out of the ordinary, the side-effects brushed off with coffee and sheer youthful vitality. It’s been a long time since those heady days though, and now another night standing watch, too wound up to sleep, leaves him with the kind of headache that eats away at his temper and makes him grim and restless. 

Lucifer has taken over the central portion of the warehouse and is painting the last of the spell work in place for the final binding. The sigil is like nothing Sam has ever seen before, just another in a long line of such things. He recognises Lucifer’s handwriting in the loops and angles of it, but the glyphs make his eyes hurt after a while, and neither Dean nor Bobby will even look at them at all. Both of them are out in the parking lot, taking turns to sleep and heat food over the camping stove. Sam isn’t hungry. There’s so much tired, nervous energy in him that he thinks he might actually be sick if he tried to eat right now. He turns away from where Lucifer is engrossed in his work, leaving the angel to his painting. Sam can’t help with this, the spell needs to be perfect first time and although he’s talented he has nowhere near the level of flawless accuracy that an archangel has. 

They’ve sectioned off the area where the Leviathans are trapped with tarps and rope to prevent them seeing what Lucifer is painting. The archangel had given Sam one of his curious head tilts when he’d returned from his second trip to find the new set-up, but Sam hadn’t been able to summon the energy to explain to him why he feels it less of a cruel and unusual captivity if their prisoners can’t see their impending doom being created. Knowing all too well Lucifer’s absolute lack of compassion towards anyone that doesn’t directly benefit him he suspects the archangel wouldn’t have understood anyway. 

There’s still something about this whole plan that sets Sam’s teeth on edge, and although he knows without shadow of doubt that the creatures they’ve captured wouldn’t hesitate to eat them all if given the chance, there remains a part of him that flinches away from the element of living sacrifice. This isn’t the way they do things. But then, none of this is normal. 

Beneath the harsh illumination of one floodlight the Leviathans stand in eerie silence. There are ten of them now, the full complement that Lucifer thinks they’ll need as bait. Trapped inside magic that acts directly on the reality of their beings their inhuman nature is quite suddenly more than apparent. Statue still and absolutely silent they stare at Sam with eyes that hold nothing of humanity in them. Perhaps Sam should feel more afraid of them, of their ancient and unrelenting wickedness. But for the first time in a very long time the most powerful creature in the room isn’t the one trying to kill him. Sam doesn't know enough about what's going on with these creatures, or even what exactly they are, but he does know that all of a sudden the tables have turned.

The first time he'd gone hunting Lucifer had taken Sam along for the ride. Sam had gotten the distinct impression that the archangel had been using it as an opportunity to show off rather than there being any real need for Sam to be there, but there’d been a strange excitement to working with him on something so dangerous. Dangerous for _humans,_ Sam had had to remind himself. Lucifer had appeared entirely at ease with the whole affair, concerned mainly with making the process look good. Any other circumstance and Sam would have been telling him to quit fooling around, but there’d been something thrilling about the archangel’s self-assuredness and his absolute disdain for the threat the Leviathans posed. It’s been too long since Sam’s felt like they’ve had the upper hand in this fight, and it’s good to finally be the ones in control. For the relief of that feeling he's willing to let the archangel's monumental pride take the lead for just a little while.

“Do you even know what you’ve done, Winchester?”

It takes Sam a moment to locate the speaker. All of the Leviathans are staring at him, cold and unfriendly, and he thinks they’re only so brave right now because Lucifer is out of sight behind the tarps and all the way across the other side of the warehouse. Still, it is a little unsettling, even if none of them can get to him. He frowns at the middle-aged woman staring venomously back at him, and decides that actually, he really doesn’t care what these things have to say. With a soft snort he turns away.

“He has no idea. He doesn’t even know what that thing is.”

It’s a man this time, thin almost to the point of emaciation. Sam narrows his eyes and shakes his head in darkly amused disbelief - no matter what, they’re going to try.

“Don’t you realise what you’ve put a leash on, meat sack?” It’s the woman again, tongue as poisonous as the look in her eyes. “Do you not know what it is?”

“Come over here and we’ll tell you,” one of them laughs. Another one shifts slightly, leaning close to the edge of its sigil trap. “It doesn’t know, meat isn’t intelligent.”

They’re talking about Lucifer, he realises. But they’re doing it in a strange, roundabout way where apparently none of them dare speak his name. Curiosity winning out, Sam turns round to look at them again. “I know you’re too scared to say his name,” he replies softly.

“Ignorant little morsel,” the woman sneers. “Come here and let me eat you, it’ll be easier that way. I’ll make it quick and you’ll never have to think about that cursed attack dog again.”

“Cursed?” Sam tilts his head. Lucifer the Abomination, the Prince of Lies, the Serpent - all these are familiar to him. ‘Cursed’ is probably a new one though. No-one’s really used it in reference to the archangel before since they usually save it for Sam.

“Was one set of chains not enough? Is he sick?” 

“No,” another laughs. “He just doesn’t know.”

The tall, bony one leans as close to the edge of its trap as it can get, and there’s something disbelieving and hungry in its rasping voice. “You really don’t know what _‘he’_ is, do you?”

Sam thinks of his dream then, not the hellscape tortures of the Cage, or the creeping horror of the beast they're trying to trap, but the other one, the _rare_ one. The one where Lucifer is there with him, but still and silent and somewhere out of sight. He thinks of the ice cold and the light: crystal and glass and a fractal complexity his waking mind shies away from. He blinks the sudden intrusive image away.

“Cattle don’t think for themselves,” one of the ones near the back says. “And when it finally works out what it’s done it’s going to wish it had laid down and died.”

“Shut up,” Sam snarls, his voice flat and angry. The Leviathans shift in their little traps, as though each and every one of them itches to hurl itself forward to devour. And then suddenly they all flinch back almost as one, shrinking away from the presence that appears at Sam’s shoulder. 

“I hope everything’s alright here, Sam,” Lucifer says, but the words are aimed at the Leviathans and the distilled threat in them makes the ambient air temperature plummet. Sam draws in a breath and straightens, both impressed and uneasy at how thoroughly the archangel cows the creatures.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, eying the cringing monsters. “Yeah, we’re all good here.”

With a last lingering look at their captives, Lucifer touches his fingertips briefly to Sam’s elbow, and draws him away.

They emerge out into the parking lot to bright sunshine and a stiff breeze that pulls the scent of the plains in across the asphalt. Sam blinks and shields his eyes against the glare, surprised by the difference between today and yesterday. Dean is lying across the back seat of the Impala, the door open to let in the air. He sits up as the door to the warehouse closes with a metallic rattle, and shuffles himself out to join Bobby at the camp stove.

“Coffee?” 

Bobby holds up a tin mug as they approach and Sam nods gratefully. 

“So,” Dean says, leaning back against the car and folding his arms. “What’s the situation?”

“We’re ready,” Lucifer says.

Sam almost drops the steaming mug that Bobby is handing to him. “We are?” 

His words are echoed by Dean’s look of surprise. His brother quickly masters his expression, and then with a sharp glance at Sam, raises his eyebrows and nods for the archangel to continue.

Lucifer settles back on his heels, folding his arms in that carefully casual manner of his, and blinks slowly at the humans staring at him. Then, in clipped, simple words he tells them what he wants to happen next.

“Hang on, wait just a second,” Dean says, holding up a hand once the archangel falls silent. “You’re saying that you want me and Bobby _outside_ the warehouse while you fight this creature, but Sam has to stay on the inside with you - why?”

The archangel’s expression says that he’d expected this, above all others, to be the first question. 

“Because I don’t think you’d go further even if I asked you nicely, Dean.”

Very briefly Sam lets his eyes close in irritation, and then he cuts in before his brother can take the bait. 

“That’s not what he’s asking, Lucifer.” 

Dean grunts an agreement and Lucifer turns the full focus of his attention onto Sam. _That’s_ what Sam had been expecting, that shift in attitude from thinly veiled sarcasm to a scrutiny so intense it makes him want to take a step back. He’d call it a charm offensive if he didn’t know just how wary of provoking him Lucifer has been so far. 

“You’ll be the balance to my power, Sam. This spell is yours as much as it is mine. Without you to anchor it, to anchor _me_ , this isn’t going to work. I need you there to hold the boundaries in place while I cast and seal the ritual - and the creature - in place. Without you…” the archangel splays his fingers. “...the centre cannot hold. It all flies apart.”

Sam stares steadily into the archangel’s pale blue eyes and to his surprise he realises that he believes him. There’s no trick to the angel’s words, no twisting of the truth into something that’s a parody of itself. No gleam of self-interest and no hidden barb waiting to catch him on its hook. Just the simple truth of the matter, that Sam is the balance to Lucifer’s power, and if they want this spell to work then they are, as Lucifer has been saying since the very start of this madness, going to have to do it together.

“He’s right, Dean,” Sam says. He shifts his gaze over the angel’s shoulder to meet his brother’s eyes. “I need to be there or the spell won’t work properly. It has to be this way.”

Dean’s frown conveys his unhappiness very clearly, but for once he doesn’t appear disbelieving. He draws in a breath, casting his gaze around the parking lot as he turns this over in his mind, and beside him Bobby looks up and sideways, his mouth a grim line as he waits for him to come to a decision. Sam knows that whatever way they do this the old hunter will be there at their side, and for that he’s more grateful than he knows he’s ever said.

“Do we even have a choice?” Dean asks suddenly, and his voice is quiet, scratchy with frustration and a bitter, weary resignation.

“Dean,” Sam says softly, but he doesn’t know what else to say. This is where they’ve been heading for over a month now, and it’s never been in either of them to balk at the final confrontation.

“Fuck, fine. All right, fine,” Dean says, and although he’s shaking his head Sam knows he won’t fight this. Still, when he turns back to face them the finger he points at Lucifer is as steady as his glare. “You better watch his back, because if that thing hurts a single hair on Sam’s head I will kill you myself, you understand me?”

For once, Lucifer doesn’t sneer. “I understand, Dean. And I promise you, Sam will be safe with me.”

Despite himself, Sam believes him.

  
  


*

  
  


“Sam?”

In the yawning emptiness of the warehouse, the archangel’s voice is soft enough that Sam almost doesn’t hear his name being spoken. Dean and Bobby are outside moving the vehicles to positions that will hopefully keep them far out of any danger but close enough that if any of them need some kind of swift exit they’ll still be in reach. Sam’s not exactly sure what kind of exit any of them can expect to make if Lucifer turns out not to be able to contain the beast, but still it’s better to hope for the best, even if you're already planning for the next apocalypse.

He turns and finds the archangel approaching from the far side of the ritual circle. The Leviathans are hidden away out of sight behind the tarps on the other side of the huge room, silent for now. Lucifer’s step is quiet, and there’s something in his expression that makes Sam pause and tilt his head in query.

Despite the question that’s clearly hovering on the angel’s lips, Lucifer pauses when he draws near, and for a moment appears to be considering his words. Sam lifts his chin, half in encouragement, more than a little in concern. It’s not like Lucifer to hesitate like this, and when he does it usually means Sam’s not going to like whatever comes next.

“Lucifer?”

A flicker of something strangely like concern moves across the archangel’s face and is gone almost as soon as it appears. Sam narrows his eyes, a frown drawing his brows down. There’s a caution in Lucifer right now that he’s never seen before, not to this extent. He repeats the angel’s name, more softly this time, and finally the archangel answers.

“This is it, Sam. What comes next is what you wanted, what you called me here to do. And I’ll do it, Sam. I’ll do what you ask. No lies, no tricks. But know this, it’s not going to be easy. Not even for me.”

Lucifer’s voice is so soft that it’s almost hidden under the drone of insects from the grasslands outside. Sunlight falls in a golden slant from the open door of the warehouse, picking out the tan of the angel’s skin and making his eyes strange and luminescent beneath its light. Sam can see the tension in him, can feel it mirrored in his own muscles, tight with the anticipation of something he can’t even name. 

“Not even for an archangel?” he asks, and he’d wanted it to be a joke, but the words come out with too much sombre concern for that.

Lucifer hesitates a beat before he replies, half a breath drawn in, his gaze intent on Sam’s own. Measuring, weighing up his words before he commits. “Doing this is going to take away almost every scrap of power I’ve been able to gather since you brought me back. I won’t be able to hold on afterwards, not like I have been.”

When Sam holds to his silence, Lucifer seems almost at a loss. He pauses again, and Sam can see him searching his eyes, looking for something Sam’s not even sure of himself. What is it the archangel expects from him exactly? Shock? Concern? Surely not. And yet.

“If you don’t help me, Sam, that’s it. Show’s over, I’m going back to the Cage,” Lucifer says, and there’s a hint of uncertainty in his tone now, the tiniest note of disbelieving laughter, as though all this is somehow an awful trick that Sam is playing on him, and any second now Sam will reveal that he’s joking. 

_I don’t know what you think is going on here,_ Sam thinks to himself. And in truth, he’s not sure he knows himself that he’s not missing something. He is once more plagued by the sensation that something isn’t quite right, that there's some element of all this that doesn’t fit perfectly. You tortured me, he thinks. Except, if Lucifer is being true to the nature that Sam knows he possesses, he’s not lying when he says that he did not. It would be a convenient solution to blame everything on the arcane cruelty of the Cage, but that doesn’t preclude the archangel from taking responsibility for all the rest of the shit he’s pulled. The death, the plagues, the destruction. He’s still a goddamned monster after all.

And in the dark, when the other monsters were circling, he’d been the only one that Sam felt he could put his back to. The only one he knew, without shadow of a doubt, would protect him until the end.

“They said you’re cursed,” he says suddenly. 

For a second Lucifer just blinks, and Sam can see the confusion in him. Then it’s gone, replaced in a split-second by the glacial rage that has made Sam’s blood turn to ice on so many occasions. Lucifer’s wrath burns cold and relentless, and seeing it again after so long stops the breath in Sam’s lungs. The archangel leans in close, his head turning slowly but his eyes locked on Sam’s. 

“Don’t listen to those grubby little worms, Sam.” Lucifer’s voice is low and tight with anger, a purr of rage and implied threat that even directed elsewhere makes Sam thrill with it. “They’ll say anything, they’re desperate, like rats trapped in a box, tearing each other apart before the lack of air can even start to kill them. You can’t trust anything they say.”

There had been a time when the palpable weight of Lucifer’s threats, the sheer menace of him, had given Sam the kind of guilty high not even the demon blood could have produced. When they’d acted as one entity, even one where Sam had been in the back seat, riding alongside the monumental engine of power that is an archangel manifest, it had been a trip like no other. It had been a trip straight to Hell of course, but by God Himself the high of it had been almost euphoric. Like nothing in the world could have stopped them. It frightens him to remember how that had felt, what it had made of him that he could find such satisfaction in it.

Lucifer must read the sudden shift in the colour of Sam’s emotion, for he pulls back a pace. It’s not far enough to be completely out of his personal space, but it’s enough to give him room to breathe again. Sam can see the reluctance to fully back down in the archangel’s eyes and wonders once more what it is that’s pushed Lucifer so close to overstepping the fragile boundaries they’ve laid down between them.

“Sam,” Lucifer breathes. “I know this is a lot to take in, but try to remember what I’ve said to you all along. I’m not here to harm you, I’m here because you called me. You called and I answered, Sam, on your terms, by your rules. If I’d wanted to break free, this is not how I would have gone about it.”

Sam is thinking of the demons, and he’s thinking of the rage that had burned in him so hot and bright and all-consuming, enough to burn up his whole soul and still, in the end, not enough to defeat the Devil. It hadn’t been his wrath, or even Lucifer’s, that had ended it all.

“Sam?”

He lifts his gaze to meet the archangel’s and in the Devil’s eyes there’s something Sam recognises as fear. And it’s not the fear of defeat, or any kind of fear of the Cage, it’s something deeper and at once more profound and so much more fragile than that. An image of light flits across his mind, of towering columns of crystal doused in colours he can’t even name. A song and a choir, or just a voice so complex it’s not anything close to human. This is the end, this is the reason they called the Devil back, and suddenly Sam isn’t ready for this at all. 

If Lucifer is cursed, if what the Leviathans say is true, and why shouldn’t it be? What have they got to lose by telling the truth? They know now they’re going to die and there’s no loyalty in monsters like them, no gain for them in trying to sabotage the opposition and ensure the survival of their kind, that’s just not the way Leviathans think. But if they’re telling the truth then Lucifer is hiding it, hiding _something_ , and Sam’s so goddamned tired of being confused, of always being one step behind the true plan.

Lucifer is looking at him as though whatever it is he wants from Sam he can see it slipping inexorably away out of his reach. He looks sick in his soul, or whatever complex coils of grace make up the angelic equivalent, defeated in a way so profound that even he cannot find his way back. It’s unnerving in a manner Sam’s not used to experiencing, and it lifts the hairs on the back of his neck. A part of him wants to run far and away from here, from this whole damned mess and every twisted up argument that comes with it. To leave the Devil and his strange, inexplicable grief far behind.

“Okay,” he says, because right now he doesn’t know what else he can say. And then, when Lucifer doesn’t say anything more, he nods once, jerkily, and turning walks away and back out into the late afternoon sun.

  
  


*

  
  


They’ve packed away the pair of portable floodlights, leaving the warehouse lit only by the glow of the candles circled around its perimeter. The centre of the warehouse contains the intricate sprawl of Lucifer’s binding spell, and set now between the strange loops and coils stand the ten Leviathans, penned into their tiny Leviathan traps, far enough apart from one another that they can’t try to eat each other out of fear or boredom or simply because it’s the way they are. Sam still feels horribly guilty about what they’re doing here, using live bait like this, and he has to keep telling himself that these things are nothing like the humans they’re impersonating. They’re nothing more than voracious appetites on legs, with no purpose other than to consume, and if he were to go too close they’d eat him in a heartbeat. Still though, it doesn’t sit right with him.

In the gloom Lucifer is a flickering presence, there and then gone again, moving with the unbound speed of an angel as he appears between the shadowy forms, then vanishes in the next heartbeat. His sword is a gleam of gold and silver, half-caught in the light of the candles and shockingly bright in the darkness. Sam knows he’s going to the mercury mine and back, or something similar, laying down trails for the beast to follow.

“Well that’s creepy,” a voice behind him says, and Sam glances back over his shoulder. His brother has come up behind him on silent feet in the way that always makes Sam jump slightly. For such a big and occasionally brash man, Dean can move like a cat when he wants to. 

“Hey,” he says.

Dean settles next to him, resting against the stack of crates that Sam is half sitting, half leaning on, and folds his arms to watch the strange show playing out before them. In the low light he looks grim and tired, lines of exhaustion etched deep into his face, and for just a second Sam feels a glint of anger at the sight. It’s not fair that yet again his brother looks like he carries the weight of this world and the next on his shoulders. The sudden emotion takes him by surprise and he blinks, looking away.

“This that thing he said he’d do?” Dean asks gruffly. 

“Yeah,” Sam replies. After he’d left Lucifer - _left,_ not _fled from,_ he tells himself - he’d stayed out in the sunlight until early evening had started to fall, bringing the archangel back with it. Lucifer had been cool and reserved, almost indifferent as he’d explained the final moves of the plan to Sam. So much so that in its own way his manner in those moments had put Sam so much on edge his muscles had almost cramped with it. “He said the creature’s not exactly unintelligent, but it’s probably not capable of fully grasping the logic of this reality. It needs a hint to know that it should come here for food, rather than go elsewhere, so Lucifer’s laying a kindof trail down. Oh, and apparently it’s unlikely to be here straight away.”

“Figures,” Dean says shortly.

For a few seconds they’re silent. Sam can feel the tension on the air and he doesn’t know how much of it is from within him and how much is bleeding across from his brother’s closed-off stance. Dean leans back, staring out across the warehouse with his jaw set and his arms folded, and Sam knows his own posture is much the same. They still haven’t really moved past the anger from the other night, when Sam had given Lucifer free rein to lock his brother out, to keep him from reaching them when he’d seen his little brother in the grips of some kind of breakdown. Sam’s still angry over that, and he’s not sure if he’s angry at himself for being weak enough to turn to Lucifer for help, or if he’s angry at Dean’s predictable reaction to him needing just five goddamned seconds without some crap trying to drive him insane. Monsters or demons or hallucinations, it just doesn’t stop and it’s not wrong for him to want a break from it. Some kind of time out. 

“Dean,” he says, at the same time as his brother says, “Sammy.”

They both draw up short, looking at one another in silence, then Dean shakes his head. “You mind?” he asks, and from the rise of his eyebrows Sam knows it’s a request to go first. _Fuck it,_ he thinks. _If we’re going to have this out we may as well do it now before-_ Before it’s too late.

“Sure,” he says.

Dean nods, draws in a deep breath, then looses it slowly. When he finally starts to talk his voice is low, and threaded through with a bone-deep weariness. “Sam, I-” 

With a shake of his head Dean pauses again, licking his lips, and Sam feels the same old guilt he always does, along with the spike of shame that he’s the one that’s put that expression of worry on his brother’s face. It doesn’t make sense and it’s not fair, but it’s a gut-deep, years-old reaction ingrained into him from as far back as when the two of them were just kids. It pisses him off that he feels it even when he knows he’s the one in the right, but he can’t help it.

“Sam, I’m worried,” Dean says finally. 

“What about, Dean?” Sam asks, and the attempt he makes for reassuring cheer falls thin and strangled in the face of such obvious peril as that which looms before them. Dean doesn’t seem to notice the attempt. He looks sideways and up at his brother, and Sam straightens, sobering beneath his regard.

“About you, man. About _him._ About all of... _this.”_ Dean gestures around them at the darkness of the warehouse, the shadowy forms of the trapped Leviathans and the intermittent flicker of the archangel’s presence. In the candlelight the sigils daubed on the floor seem to twist and turn in on themselves like Magic Eye pictures forming from some repulsive cosmic horror.

“Dean…”

“No, Sammy. Don’t ‘Dean’ me. Tell me you think we’re doing the right thing here. Tell me you’re sure.”

Sam meets his brother’s eyes and in them he sees an uncertainty he’d not expected. Dean is looking at him like he’s having second thoughts, or maybe like he’s never been convinced by any of this in the first place. Sam’s seen Dean look to him for reassurance before, but he does it when he feels out of his depth, when it’s no longer just about saving people and has become something further into the grey, a place where it’s hard to tell who the monsters really are any more. 

“I am, Dean,” he replies, and is relieved by how steady his voice comes out. “We are. This is what we have to do, and there’s no other way.”

His brother looks at him for a long time then, searching his face for a measure of Sam’s resolve, his certainty. Maybe even to gauge if he’s telling the truth. Sam’s seen that look often enough, but this time he has nothing to hide. There’s no trick here in knowing that they need Lucifer to contain this thing. 

“We need him. He’s going to do it, Dean. He can’t not.”

“You trust him?” Dean asks sharply.

Sam answers without thinking. He gives the truthful answer, the one that has more caveats than he can fully articulate, its painful complexity hidden by the simplicity of its single syllable. 

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean breathes, shaking his head, and Sam feels himself stiffen. Of course Dean will think the worst of him for saying it. Of course he’ll ignore the decades Sam spent suffering in the Cage, the weeks he spent sharing a body with the Devil, that time he pushed the archangel down and threw them both back into Hell. The thousand and one reasons Sam has to be careful of Lucifer, to know just what an unrepentant bastard the archangel really is. “After everything he’s done? Croatoan, our friends?”

“Fuck you, Dean,” Sam hisses, voice made low and breathless with shock. Ellen, Jo, the loss of them is still a gut punch that isn’t ever going away. He pushes himself upright and points a finger in his brother’s face. “You think I don’t care about what he did? Come on, Dean! What the hell do I have to do to get you to understand? To- to just _trust_ me. You think the worst of _everything_ I do. You second guess me, you override me-”

“Sam,” Dean says.

“-no! You don’t trust a damned thing I do even when I tell you why I’m doing it!”

“Sammy!” Dean fists one hand in the front of Sam’s shirt, pulling him in abruptly close and cutting him off, his face next to Sam’s own so that he stops in surprise, trying to pull away. But Dean puts his other hand to the back of Sam’s head and suddenly Sam sees what he’s doing. This isn’t a threat, this is a desperate attempt to stop their slide down into an all-out fight. “Sammy, listen to me. I am _not_ blaming you. I am not accusing you, okay? You understand me? I’m telling you that I am scared of him, Sam. I am scared of how he’s digging his claws into you. I _know_ he is powerful and I know you’ve beaten him down before, and I know you’ll do it again. But Sam I need to know that you’re doing this because you’re in control and not because he’s got something over you, you understand me?”

Sam swallows. He can feel the tension shaking in his brother’s grip and the muscles of his arm where Sam’s hands are gripping him tight in return. He breathes heavily through the sudden adrenaline rush of reaction, trying to smother the fizz of anger that’s still in his veins. There’s relief there too though, the sudden euphoria of being proven wrong about someone’s intentions. 

“He’s not got anything on me, Dean,” he says, and his voice is rough with emotion. “He’s scared too. I can tell he’s scared. And he can’t do anything about it, he can’t make me do anything. I’ve got him, I’ve really got him this time.”

Dean stares into his eyes for a long moment, and Sam meets his gaze with as much certainty, as much reassurance as he can put into it. Abruptly Dean nods. “Don’t ever think I’d put what happened back then between us, Sam. We’ve paid for all that. We both have. God knows we’ve suffered. But I am telling you now, Sammy, you’ve always been strong. There is _no-one_ else in the world I’d trust to do this spell and keep him under control. I just wish to God it didn’t have to be you again.”

“Dean…”

“Listen to me, Sam. It’s not over yet, and if he tries _anything_ out there, you do what you have to to put him in his place. Whatever it takes, Sam.”

Sam’s answering nod is shaky, his throat tight with emotion. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

“Good. We good?”

“Yeah," Sam manages, swallowing hard. "We’re good.”

Dean nods and puts his palm to Sam’s cheek in reassurance, for him or for Sam it’s not clear. Then they step away from one another and the moment is gone.

After a second Dean hoists himself up to sit on the edge of the crates, and Sam, feeling lighter and looser than he has in days, settles next to him. They stay like that for the next hour as outside the warehouse the night rolls onwards, passing midnight and beginning the slow turn back towards the day.

  
  


*

  
  


It’s close on 2am when Lucifer flickers back into existence for the final time. The sigils painted on the floor are glowing with a soft, unearthly light now, making it hard at times for even Sam to look at them. Dean has long since learned to keep his gaze from resting on them for too long. The archangel solidifies into manifestation in the centre of the binding, and with a deft flick of his wrist banishes his sword back to wherever he keeps it. He crosses the warehouse without even a single glance either side at the Leviathans that cower back from him, straining to get as far from his notice as the tiny confines of their personal prisons will allow. In the candlelight his eyes gleam a blue so pale it’s almost silver.

“Hey, douchebag,” Dean says in greeting. “That it? You done?”

Lucifer’s quicksilver gaze flicks sideways only briefly in acknowledgement of the question, then returns to settle on Sam. Sam feels a sudden thrill go through him, and any drowsiness the wait had brought on in him is suddenly banished. With Lucifer manifest so close he can feel the power of him on the air, making his skin prickle with it. It’s leftover energy from the trail he’s been laying down, it must be, but Dean doesn’t appear to notice it. Unless his brother’s cool is as feigned as his expression of boredom.

“That’s it, Sam,” Lucifer says, directing all his attention to Sam, who swallows, still uncertain of what he can feel shivering on the air around them. “Everything’s ready, now we just have to wait.”

“How long?” Sam manages, but Lucifer shakes his head. 

“I don’t know. A few hours. It’s almost awake, but it’s not there yet. Give it time, Sam. It will be here, I promise you.” Lucifer’s gaze lingers on his for a moment longer, then turns sideways. “Dean, you and Bobby should remain outside from now on. It’s going to get bright in here soon, too bright for either of you to bear.”

There’s a moment in which Sam thinks his brother will resist, but then Dean draws in a deep breath, and turns to clap him on the shoulder. He looks long and deep into Sam’s eyes, then says, “You remember what I said. We’ll be just outside. You know what to do.”

Sam nods, swallowing hard, and then just like that his brother has turned away. He watches him stride across the warehouse, and isn’t surprised when he doesn’t look back before drawing the big metal doors closed behind him. 

It leaves Sam alone in the gloom of the warehouse, the shadows of the Leviathans writhing across the floor in the flickering of the candles and the strange gleam of the sigils. He can feel Lucifer at his shoulder, silent and withdrawn, waiting just out of his line of sight. The pressure of the archangel’s presence is heavy on the air, and Sam can feel the coiled power of him, as though a creature far larger than a mere man is standing just behind him. It’s a strangely familiar sensation and something in the back of Sam’s mind turns over, offering a glimpse of a scene he’d...what? That he’d forgotten? How can that be? But it feels as though he’s been here before, _felt_ this before, like a dream from the a previous night popping back into his head with no warning. 

He thinks of the storm and his nightmare of the beast. Of the way the sickly light had faded away to be replaced by the cool, stained-glass hue of colours he couldn’t name. Lucifer had been there in his dream, and it _had_ been Lucifer, he knows that without any splinter of doubt. Lucifer in some strange, inhuman, truly _angelic_ way, and although Sam can’t picture him he can still remember the _sense_ of him. Huge and coiled and complex, immense and heavy like the weight of a neutron star at his back. 

Sam is tired, so very damned tired, but it’s almost over now. They’re so close to being finished here that he doesn’t really know what to do with it. Everything is suddenly moving so fast, and the decisions he’d thought didn’t matter are right there on top of him. What will happen afterwards, if- _when_ they succeed here? Lucifer will go back to the Cage, of course. Why is he even thinking about this?

He remembers a voice, or a choir, no- a voice. Resonant and strange, spiralling up between great, many-faceted columns of glass. Or something like it. 

Lucifer is still silent at his shoulder, waiting now, and Sam can feel the reluctance in him, the tension, even without looking. Something fundamental has changed in the archangel’s attitude tonight, from engagement to resignation, and Sam realises that he neither understands nor likes it. _What a goddamned mess,_ he finds himself thinking again. Too much, too fast, it feels like the situation is hurtling away from him, understanding retreating behind the complexities of a situation rapidly sliding out of his control. A chance for something he’s not even sure of already slipping away.

“Your wings,” he says quietly. “Are they made of...crystal?”

He feels rather than hears the archangel’s reaction. When he turns Lucifer is staring at him with an intensity that near burns in his eyes, and Sam can sense him gripping hard on to a tightly held control. He knows immediately from the look on the angel’s face that he’s right. 

“And light,” he says. “I don’t even know what colour. I don’t have a word for it.”

“Sam,” Lucifer breathes, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t take even a single step closer.

It’s enough for Sam. He can feel the contours of the memory pressed into his brain at an angle, misaligned so that the whole of it is just out of sight, but no longer quite as out of reach as it was. He thinks, suddenly, that he’s spent a lot of time sitting beneath those crystalline structures that pass for archangelic wings, and it doesn’t make any damned sense, but neither does it frighten him. He gives Lucifer a long look of consideration, noting the tension in the archangel’s vessel, the way he bleeds intensity into the gloom of the warehouse, pulling on Sam’s senses like a magnet. He’s phenomenal and awesome, and for the first time in a very long time Sam truly isn’t afraid of him. 

But nor is he willing to give more than this, and Lucifer, to his surprise, doesn’t seem ready to ask it of him.

“Okay,” Sam says, although the archangel hasn’t said anything to answer his question. Sam doesn’t need him to say the words to know quite clearly that he’s right. He meets Lucifer’s gleaming gaze, bright in the shadows and feels a swell of quiet confidence. He’s not sure where it comes from, but it feels right, it feels _good._

“We wait then,” he says, and Lucifer’s answering smile is once more full of a fierce, expectant satisfaction. This time it doesn’t make Sam flinch.


	20. Bound/Unbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The binding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third of this weekend's three chapters.

It’s the infinitesimal brightening of the room that gives the creature’s impending arrival away. That, and the cowering of the Leviathans. Sam feels the weight of Lucifer’s hand on his shoulder, and the archangel leans in close. 

“Be ready, Sam. This is it.”

They’ve been over what comes next countless times. The trick will be in convincing the beast that its only escape route is via the inner surfaces of the mirror cage placed neatly in the centre of the binding circle, and in order to do that Sam will need to hold the binding spell steady while Lucifer works his craft. It’s the archangel’s job to torment the thing into chasing him around the confines of the trap until it realises the danger of its situation and attempts to flee into the refuge they’ve so conveniently provided. Once inside the mirror box their trap will snap closed into an inescapable prison and the world will once more be safe from primordial monsters. At least, that’s the plan. From the tension in Lucifer’s posture and the way he’d made Sam go over his part again and again, Sam understands that there will be no room for mistakes. They get it right here and now, or there’s not going to be another chance. With sinking certainty Sam suspects, despite Lucifer’s promises of protection, that should the two of them fumble this binding not everyone is going to make it out alive. 

At Lucifer’s urging he dips his fingers in the bowl of bloody paint at the side of the ritual circle, pressing his palms together and then placing them securely on the two sigils that will allow him to feed power and control into the spell. He thinks of his brother and Bobby then, hunkered down outside in the dubious safety of the parking lot, ready with blade and gun should anything go wrong. What they’re going to do if he and Lucifer can’t contain this thing between them he really doesn’t know. Flee, he hopes, and knows even as he thinks it that they won’t.

Sam had spoken only very briefly to Lucifer of what they’d do if the ritual failed. The archangel’s response had chilled him to the bone, although of course he should have expected it. With an unaccustomed hardness to his voice, Lucifer had made it absolutely clear that if Sam didn't permit him to fight at his full capacity then he would be risking the possibility that Lucifer would not be strong enough to both bind the creature and protect Sam too. The archangel had made no bones about the choice he’d make in that situation - at the cost of the rest of the world Lucifer would save Sam. 

It is not, despite the starkness of it, entirely unexpected. Lucifer is both bound by the rules of his summoning to protect his summoner, and has, many times over the years, shown just how little he cares for the rest of humanity. To let the beast go free in favour of saving Sam would hardly be an unexpected choice for him. Even so confirmation of the grim simplicity of it had left Sam feeling taken aback. 

After the long days and hours of waiting, suddenly the creature is there faster than Sam is ready for. There’s no warning beyond the lifting of the shadows and even that is a subtle transition from candlelit gloom to the pale and sickly luminescence that has haunted Sam’s dreams for weeks. He can feel every hair on his body standing on end, and the desire to run is primal and nearly overwhelming. Almost immediately there’s a high, thin note on the air, as piercing as a scream, and every breath is suddenly thick with the overpowering scent of rotting flowers. Before him the Leviathans are gabbling and hissing in their ugly language, testing the boundaries of their traps and jerking spasmodically away. Only one of them stands still and silent, staring intently at Sam, its Leviathan mouth a wide tear in its otherwise human face. It drools its hatred at him, body as unmoving as a statue, and even in the midst of what’s coming Sam has the presence of mind to recoil from the depths of its loathing. 

“Steady,” Lucifer says, closer than Sam had realised. “Hold the spell Sam, brace against me.”

And then it’s too late for anything else. The creature is there in the warehouse with them, a shifting morass of light that turns endlessly inwards upon itself along strange angles and planes the human mind is simply incapable of comprehending. Sam can feel Lucifer’s power bolstering his own mental defences and he knows that without it his mind would already be beyond sanity.

Suddenly, inescapably present, the creature hovers in the centre of the binding sigil, drawn there along the paths that Lucifer has laid down for it, its alien form maggot-like in some indefinable way, and the Leviathans shriek as one. With an inexorable pull the beast begins to feed on their essences, drawing them into itself and leaving nothing but pillars of chalky remains standing lifeless in their traps. It’s done in an instant, Leviathan flesh turning in a wave to bone white, every scrap of life force drawn from their bodies by the beast's mindless pull. But even while the beast still feeds, Lucifer acts. He glides past Sam’s right shoulder, his eyes fixed on the creature suspended above the ritual circle, and there’s a smile that’s both ferocious and anticipatory on his lips. The archangel draws his sword from the air, pulling it into existence in a flash of silver-chased gold, and that, finally, is when the creature notices them both.

Sam shudders helplessly when he feels the beast’s attention fixate on him. It’s like being caught in a maddening vice of pressure and focus that makes his animal brain want to run screaming. It’s only the presence of the bond between himself and Lucifer that allows him any kind of resistance at all, and without its protection he knows beyond doubt that he’d already be dead or insane. The bond between them hums both strong and vital, more present than he’s felt it since that first act of summoning in the forest almost a month ago. It lends him a kind of confidence he’d never have thought possible in the face of so alien a threat as this, and with some surprise he realises that he _can_ do this. He can hold his ground, he can push back, he can steady his half of this spell and keep it strong. This is so much different to the wild and uncontrollable panic he’d felt in his nightmares of this creature. 

As Lucifer strides into the centre of the sigil Sam forces his eyes away from the creature and applies himself to his part in its binding. The concrete of the warehouse floor is cold and real against his palms and the painted sigils pulse beneath his skin as though they’re alive. This _is_ angelic magic, but it’s older and more potent than nearly anything Sam has ever touched. Ancient like the rings of the Horsemen, evidence of a time before anything modern was even an idea in the minds of his ancestors. In the centre of the binding circle Lucifer tilts back his head and stretches out his arms in welcome.

_Now, Sam!_

Sam pushes his consciousness into the weave of the spell and feels the power beneath his hands begin to hum, thrumming with potency like a live wire. He channels all of his energy and intent into the coils of the sigils, letting them sustain the warding that will contain this fight within the warehouse and anchor Lucifer while the archangel manifests his strength. 

Back in the forest, when all this had still been a theoretical, the archangel had called Sam a complement to his own abilities, and told Sam that his proficiency with magic was as a direct result of his status as Lucifer’s true vessel. Here and now it’s all too apparent just how accurate that is. As Lucifer draws on his power Sam leans his will into the spell and feels it respond like an eager animal. The sheer strength of the magic is awesome, and were he not already experienced in spell casting he might have withdrawn in shock. But Sam’s been doing this for years now, on Earth and in Hell and with the support of an archangel his hands are steady.

In the centre of the circle the whine of the creature's manifestation shifts abruptly into an aggressive wail, a horridly sped up splintering of glass that scratches at the ears and the mind alike. Sam narrows his eyes and braces as he feels Lucifer pick up the weave of the binding spell and take up his role as bait and aggressor. He does so with a smile on his lips and a tilt to his chin, a welcome and a challenge both to this creature that's dragged itself out of history to impose upon his divine territory. 

The archangel’s casting is as direct and self-assured as his fighting. He spins magic with all the elegance and casual power of his divine heritage and Sam _feels_ the creature’s alarm go through him like a wash of acid. Suddenly aware of what else is in front of it the beast has realised that it’s facing a threat on a different scale to the prey its been consuming, and now it reacts in kind.

Amidst the strange interaction of the beast's manifestation and celestial magic, Lucifer is a burning figure that Sam sees more with his mind than his eye. As strange in his own way as the creature he’s facing down, the archangel is both man and something else, something more, with flashes of reflected light that Sam thinks are the very tips of his wings catching and reflecting reality back. He moves with the grace of a dancer, his sword a flickering arc of light, and where he goes the creature spins to follow. This is the point of most danger, where if it is allowed to catch him the creature will be able to overwhelm what power Lucifer has gathered back to himself over the last four weeks. So when Sam feels the archangel pull on him through their binding he knows exactly what’s being asked for. 

Bracing himself against the weave of the spell Sam lets Lucifer take his power, drawing it through his body in an exhilarating rush of energy. Abruptly Sam is once more reminded that archangels are _strong_ , so very strong, as the sheer might of Lucifer’s strength beats in his veins, making his heart race wildly and his breath come in gasps. It’s a terrifying sensation, a rush like no other that brings with it the edge of panic as he’s faced with the possibility of letting go too far, of cutting the archangel too much slack and loosing him in more ways than just the one he wants.

Lucifer feels him waver. _Sam,_ he whispers, and Sam thinks _fuck, fuck!_ It’s too much, it’s not going to be enough unless he lets go, unless he allows Lucifer to take the lead. And suddenly he hears his brother’s voice in his head, the splinter of unconcealed grief as he’d spoken of the kids this thing has taken, the way it’s not going to stop. _Take it,_ he replies, and immediately the archangel complies. Power goes out of him in a flood, like bleeding out from a severed artery, but never weakening - more power than he knew possible, and Sam leans back, pulling on the spell and using it to brace them both. Before him the warehouse is a blinding glow of sickly light as the creature screeches and Lucifer, Lucifer is a burning brightness so pure it’s like ecstasy made manifest.

Between them Sam and Lucifer feed the power of an archangel, and yet, somehow, the creature is stronger than either of them expect. Sam reads the knowledge of it over the summoning bond and is shocked by the realisation. Lucifer doesn’t do anything so fragile as falter, but Sam feels the grim determination of him, and the thread of narrow-eyed displeasure at the turn of events. He feels the archangel shift something in the way he’s weaving the magic, and it puts Sam behind him somehow, placing an extra layer of defensive armour between his mortal frailty and the creature. Amidst the complicated weave of the battle Sam feels the deliberate choice in the archangel’s tactic, and what’s more he _recognises_ it. They’ve done this before, or something like it. Not the casting, but the complex interplay of movement that is Lucifer shielding him and Sam...hiding? It should make no sense, and yet it sparks a memory in Sam so certain it’s like waking up from a dream.

And then the beast leans on them both so hard that Sam can feel it bleeding through Lucifer’s protection. It's the strength of a creature that has no concerns for the laws of the reality it's found itself in, the incomprehensible battering of an entity kicking the world around it into a shape that fits its own ideals. He feels his mind losing coherency, logical thought buckling beneath the pressure of dimensions he’s not even supposed to know exist. The walls of reality shiver beneath the beast’s terrible mass and close in, resting their immense weight on the fragile support that is his psyche. It’s unbearable, far too much for a human mind to endure and Sam screams. Lucifer reacts instantly, pulling hard on the summoning bond, and Sam gives because there’s nothing else he can do in the face of such instinctive horror. And, because he’s afraid, he doesn’t even think about what he’s done, about how he should be wary of letting Lucifer have his way at all. When Lucifer asks for more he simply says _yes._

The monster’s presence seeps through Lucifer’s shielding, bleeding into Sam’s mind like a decay. Wherever it touches reality warps, and it’s like being pressed on from all sides at once, pressure crushing into him while an immense swell of force pushes out from within his body. The conflicting sensations are wildly paradoxical, and were he not paralyzed with fear Sam would most certainly have been puking up his guts. As it is he feels the alien nature of the creature tearing away at his mind, pulling him apart in all directions even through the pulse of Lucifer’s support, and beneath the unbearable onslaught something inside Sam shifts, and finally gives. 

There’s a tearing, as of a great chain coming slowly apart, and with a monumental shearing a binding he’d not even been aware of snaps, its unseen grasp slipping away to nothing. For a sickening fraction of a second he thinks it’s the summoning bond between himself and Lucifer, and then the archangel surges power along their link, and the binding bracelet on his wrist burns almost white hot with energy. It’s enough to wrap round Sam and pull him back from the brink, but the force of it is stunning and the pain of it crushing. Sam howls and Lucifer snarls, and the creature’s voice rises impossibly higher, an endless shriek of primordial rage. 

Sam, true vessel of the archangel Lucifer, is nonetheless only human. Even with the archangel’s protection wrapped around him some part of him has already been severed of a mooring it hadn’t even known existed. Lucifer cannot stop his casting, not now with the beast intent on him, and instead the archangel is forced to tighten his grip and dance on, the creature barrelling after him, twisting the world in and around itself and folding the fabric of space like a bundled up rag. Reality splinters, and every last breath of air goes out of Sam’s lungs as he looks across the circle of the binding ritual and into Lucifer’s burning eyes. Even contained within his vessel, seen like this the archangel is breathtakingly beautiful, so shockingly strange and familiar at the same time that it’s like the opposite of being struck blind, as though in the midst of the Purgatory beast’s reality-warping presence, the effect of its kaleidoscopic influence is that all at once Sam sees with absolute indisputable clarity.

Moreover, he _remembers._

Soaring columns of crystal and diamond, bright and lit from within by an angel’s grace in colours that go far beyond the spectrum of anything Sam’s ever seen before. Luminous and beautiful, they form the struts of an archangel’s wings, faceted light and crystal where feathers should stretch. Lucifer, for this can only be him, Lucifer is _immense,_ his true form strange and eerie and wrapped all around and above Sam in a protective cocoon of light. 

The Cage, he realises all of a sudden. It’s the Cage’s chain that has been broken, the one that still had its hooks in him, one last barb lodged in his soul, seeping its poison into his mind. He sees the realisation of it in Lucifer’s eyes too, in the strange angles of his expression, and the planes of his true form hanging like an incandescent shadow above and beyond and behind his vessel. And it’s as though Sam’s mind snaps into unexpected focus, comprehension and clarity and memory all at once, overwhelming him with the question of how he could ever have forgotten.

The Cage, vast and painfully cramped in bizarre contradiction, bounded on all sides by a great void that absorbs all light, all hope, so empty that Sam cannot bear to look upon it. And somewhere in the distance a fire - not the fires of Hell, but the fire of Heaven, a raging inferno of grief and pain that can only be- _Michael_. First born. General of the armies of Heaven. Roaring and furious and burning up everything in his path. Sam cowers even at the memory of his rage.

Another memory sparks. There had been a battle down in the depths of the Cage, an ugly continuation of what had gone on above in Stull, and it had been brutal and ignoble, archangels clawing and spitting at one another like feuding cats. Sam doesn’t recall seeing Adam, but he remembers being borne aloft on the feathers of an archangel’s crystal wings, hauled back and out of the way through nothing more benevolent than jealousy and the spiteful desire to keep a possession away from a rival sibling. 

And this, this had gone on for... _years._ He can remember the endless stretching out of time, of Michael’s agonised fury, the wrath he’d flung at Lucifer, beating at him with his power and his words and what passes for angelic fists. Michael is complex and intricate in the same way that Lucifer is and Sam’s purely mortal brain stutters and refuses to comprehend the fullness of his true form, even in memory. It’s something huge and gleaming with steel, bright like the roiling heart of a star, and-

They’d fled. He and Lucifer, or rather Lucifer had snatched Sam away, taking them both to some other corner of the Cage to hide and Sam doesn’t know if it had been because he’d been losing or because Michael’s fury had finally burnt out. No. No, not that. Michael is an archangel _made_ for fury, and his righteousness will never end. They’d hidden though, the pair of them, Lucifer spitting bloodied grace with Sam grasped safe in his hands. He has claws, Sam remembers then. Curves of spiralled ice as long as Sam’s entire body, curling up to form a protective cage around him.

He doesn’t remember _why._ He can’t remember how they’d gone from Lucifer’s anger at his betrayal - because he _had_ been angry, hadn’t he? - to sitting together in the endless nothingness of the Cage, Lucifer at his back, the only constant in a prison forged of void. From the battle at the end of the world to the pristine cool of the archangel’s protective embrace, the eerie beauty of his voice spiralling up and around, intricate and multi-layered and heartbreakingly beautiful. He sings, Lucifer can _sing._

_Come back, Sam._

There’s a tug on his entire being, as though someone has tied a rope around his soul, and Sam jerks back to awareness, snapped out of his memories or dreams or whatever the hell that had been, and suddenly he’s back in the warehouse, and everything is brighter than the dawn. Except the light isn’t from the creature, not anymore, it’s the blazing grace of an angel and Sam can feel Lucifer’s concentration and his exultant triumph reverberating through the spell. He’s burning power faster than Sam would ever have thought possible, drawing it along the summoning link through Sam and up from the depths of the Cage where the rest of his being is still trapped. Sam is aghast at the sheer, endless volume of it. _God,_ he thinks, _archangels are beyond compare._

And even so, it’s only just enough. Half-trapped in another dimension there’s still a limit on what Lucifer can achieve, but Sam can feel the flare of relentless determination in him, undeniable and absolute in the way of archangels, and it makes him shudder in reaction. 

It’s over almost before Sam can comprehend what’s happening. The battle shifts in an instant, the beast's ascendancy turned into retreat, the balance of power tumbling in Lucifer's favour as the archangel asserts control of their fight, driving the beast before him in fear of his blade. Sam feels it somehow when the creature dives, leaping from its endless circling of the ritual circle to a point somewhere in the centre, Lucifer a comet on its tail, and then suddenly all the awful pressure it’s been exerting on the world simply stops. The putrescent light of the beast’s presence vanishes, and so too does the blinding majesty of Lucifer’s grace. Everything falls dark, and the light of the candles that remain are as nothing compared to the unearthly brilliance of what had filled the room before. 

There is a sudden, tinny rattling, and there on the floor in the centre of the ritual circle, Lucifer’s mirror cage, now closed, spins on its edges with an incongruity that’s almost comical. It takes several very long seconds before the box finally clatters to a halt, and in that time Sam feels himself sway, the concrete floor suddenly treacherously unstable beneath his palms. His muscles ache like they’ve cramped from head to toe, and his head is buzzing with the aftereffects of exposure to high magic in potent concentration, to say nothing of the mind-altering nature of the beast they’ve just contained. Grimly, distantly, it occurs to him that the come-down from this is going to be brutal.

Lucifer is a shadowy figure at the edge of the ritual circle. With a twist of his wrist he vanishes the sword in his hand, and then slowly bends down to scoop up the box. In the gloom the archangel looks entirely human once more, the impression of wings and void-cold fire gone, leaving behind nothing but the hard planes of his vessel. The binding spell has fallen still and lifeless now, its purpose fulfilled, and Sam lifts his hands from the sigils, levering himself a little shakily to his feet, cringing in anticipation of the aftermath’s impact. The world seems strange to him, almost as though after so much reality-bending magic ‘normal’ is no longer something that quite fits. 

He stares across the warehouse floor at the archangel and feels his stomach lurch. The things he’d seen in the midst of the battle are already slipping away, such understanding and perspectives unable to be contained by a merely mortal mind no longer under the reality-altering effects of an extra-dimensional beast’s influence. He can remember some of it though. Great crystal wings and light. A voice of silver and glass. The presence of some huge entity at his back, coiled protectively around him. The light. The pure and pristine light.

“Sam,” Lucifer says. 

In the shifting candlelight Sam thinks he sees the archangel sway. Then Lucifer is crossing the ritual circle towards him, limping as though the effort pains him, or as if he’s given every last ounce of his energy up to the binding. Sam lets him come, still uncertain of the confused roil of emotion and fading memories that are chasing one another round his head. At the edge of the ritual circle Lucifer pauses, and then holds out his hand, the mirror cage balanced on his palm in offering.

“It is done, as I promised,” he says, voice a low rasp. 

At the words Sam’s eyes flick from the deadly little box up to the archangel’s face. This close he can see and hear the exhaustion in him, and it sends an unpleasant thrill up his spine. Lucifer’s eyes are the blue of the sky, but it’s the blue of his mortal vessel rather than the etheric hue of an angel’s eyes. For a second he’s caught on them, meeting the gaze of the ancient creature looking back out at him, and his fingers hang in the air, the box forgotten.

“It’s safe,” Lucifer says. “It’s sealed closed.”

Sam blinks, then swallows, gaze falling to the silver gleam of the mirror cage. The Enochian etching glints in the dimness as though catching the light from another plane of existence entirely, and the sight of it makes him draw in a breath. So much insanity, such potent threat, all contained in that one small box. Hesitantly he reaches out to lift it from the archangel’s palm. It’s light in his fingers, cool to the touch, and had he not known better as seemingly empty as the void. 

This is it then, it’s finally over. A hunt that’s lasted more than a month, taken them halfway across the States and Sam entirely out of the country for the first time in his life, that’s brought the Devil back to his side and once more overturned everything Sam had thought he’d known. 

“Thank you,” he manages, looking up to meet Lucifer’s gaze. 

The smile that Lucifer gives him is satisfied and just a little bit crooked. He draws in a breath and then pauses, and Sam is about to fill the silence with a question, when the archangel abruptly sways on his feet. With a blink of confusion Lucifer frowns, and then Sam is stepping forward to catch him under the arms as the angel’s legs give out, and he falls.

That’s how Dean and Bobby find them some minutes later when they peer in warily through the warehouse doors. Sam on the floor at the edge of the ritual circle, the Devil sprawled out cold across his lap, and the mirror cage clutched forgotten in one hand. 

“Sam?” Dean asks cautiously, and although the room is filled with the eerie chalk remnants of dead Leviathans and the silent form of Lucifer, he has eyes only for his brother.  
  
“It’s done,” Sam says, voice hoarse. “It’s over.”

In the reflected light of the candles Sam Winchester looks strange and a little fey, with the prison box of an ancient, primordial monster held in one hand, and clasped tight in his arms the unconscious and exhausted form of Creation’s brightest archangel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of part 3. :] 
> 
> There is a _small_ chance, owing to work commitments ramping up, that I might not be able to post this coming Weds. Please accept this as notification not to wonder what's happened to me if I don't, and also an apology for a slight delay until next weekend. 
> 
> Part 4 is, as expected, all about the aftermath.


End file.
